Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Bolton Corporation Bill,

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

London Electricity Supply (No. 2) Bill [Lords],

As amended, to be considered To-morrow.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA.

COAL MINES.

Mr. HAYDAY: 1.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India how many coal mines were working in India in the year 1923; in how many had ventilating fans been installed; and the number of mines where the working shift is 12 hours or more?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Earl Winterton): The number of coal mines under the Indian Mines Act in 1923 was 942, and the number with mechanical ventilators in use was 55; the information asked for in the last part of the question is not available but the Government of India will be asked whether they can supply it.

RAILWAYS (CAPITAL DEBT).

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: 2.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India what is the capital debt of the railways of India at the present time?

Earl WINTERTON: The amount of the capital at charge on the Indian State Railways (including those worked by companies) on the 31st March, 1925, is esti-
mated at 654½ crones of rupees, or approximately (at present rates of exchange) £490,000,000.

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: Is it not the case that the progress of the State Railways has been very slow compared with that of 50 years ago?

Earl WINTERTON: I think that that does not arise out of the original question. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put the question on the Paper?

Sir FREDRIC WISE: Does that include the debenture stock?

Earl WINTERTON: I shall require notice of that question.

Mr. B. SMITH: How much of it is private capital and how much State capital?

Earl WINTERTON: I shall require notice of that question also.

ARMY OFFICERS (PAY).

Brigadier-General CHARTERIS: 3.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that the recent augmentation of pay of British officers in India, both of the British Army and of the Indian Army, applies to all officers except those of the Royal Army Medical Corps, the Indian Medical Service, Army Dental Corps, and the Royal Army Veterinary Corps; that this is certain to prejudice future recruitments for these essential services in India; and will he state the reason for this decision?

Earl WINTERTON: Officers of the Indian Medical Service in military employ have been granted the same pay concession as those in civil employ as a result of the recommendations of the Commission on the Superior Civil Services in India, and the same passage concessions as have recently been granted to officers of the Indian Army. The case of the other services mentioned has been reserved for further consideration, as there is a possibility of changes affecting them in the near future.

TRADE UNIONS.

Colonel DAY: 4.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether any legislation is contemplated by the Gov-
ernment of India for legalising trades unions and to enable such bodies to be protected from civil actions when performing trade union functions?

Earl WINTERTON: A Bill on the lines indicated has been introduced in the Indian Legislative Assembly. A copy of the Bill as introduced is being sent to the hon. Member.

IMPRESSED LABOUR.

Colonel DAY: 5.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the system of impressed labour for Government work, either civil or military, still continues; if so, will he state the number so impressed for the five years ending 31st December, 1924; and will he supply for the use of the House a copy of the rules and ordinances underlying that system?

Earl WINTERTON: Copies of certain enactments of the Indian Legislatures providing for the requisitioning of labour for emergencies such as the repair of irrigation works, etc., have been placed in the Library. The system of requisitioning services to meet the necessities of officers on tour still exists, subject to careful regulation under executive, orders in the various Provinces. The statistics asked for in the question are not available. On 24th January, 1922, a Resolution was adopted by the Indian Legislative Assembly and accepted by the Government of India in favour of the examination of the question of the abolition of impressed labour, conveyance and provisions, wherever it obtains in India, either under local or Imperial Statute or under local custom. My Noble Friend has not yet been informed of the result of the Government of India's examination of the subject.

BENGAL ORDINANCE.

Mr. THURTLE: 7 and 8.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India (1) if he can hold out any hope of an early suspension of the operation of the Bengal Ordinance;
(2) what action the Government proposes to take in relation to the recent public statement of the Swarajist leader, Mr. C. R. Das, denouncing methods of violence?

Earl WINTERTON: With the hon. Member's permission I will answer these questions together. My Noble Friend has already welcomed Mr. Das's dissociation of himself and his party from a policy of violence. But he has so far seen only Press reports of Mr. Das's utterances. If, as he hopes, Mr. Das now makes constructive proposals which obtain the support of the Government of Bengal and the Government of India, His Majesty's Government, so far as they are concerned, will give them their sympathetic consideration.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: May I ask the Noble Lord whether he has seen in the Press to-day a suggestion by Mr. Das that he and Mr. Gandhi should come over here in order to consult with the India Office at the same time as the Viceroy is being consulted, and whether he will give that favourable consideration?

Earl WINTERTON: This is a situation where, as a result of the events here and in India, it is obvious that a better understanding is hoped for. I am sure that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman will understand that no good will be done by any hasty or ill-considered reply by me in this House. If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman wants information I must ask him to give notice.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Does the Noble Lord realise that this change of atmosphere can best be used by a joint meeting such as is now suggested?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Arising out of the last answer, may we take it that this change of policy will be met on our part by the greatest possible political liberty being given in the circumstances?

Earl WINTERTON: I think that my answer very clearly deals with that. The hon. and gallant Gentleman must realise that there are situations in which, to say the least of it, it would be most inconvenient that answers should be given to this House without notice.

WAZIRISTAN (BRITISH CASUALTIES).

Mr. SOMERVILLE: 6.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the fact that Waziristan is not regarded as a field-service area, he can give the casualties
which have taken place among the British troops now forming the garrison in that country during the present peace period, and compare them with the casualties suffered by the British troops in garrison when Waziristan was regarded as a field-service area?

Captain HACKING (for Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS): The Secretary of State for War has asked me to reply. The information is not immediately available, but it will be obtained and sent to my hon. Friend as soon as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions — NIGERIA.

COTTON (NORTHERN PROVINCES).

Mr. ROY WILSON: 9.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that cotton of a quality equal to a fully-middling American is being grown in Northern Nigeria; that the climatic conditions there are in every way satisfactory for the growing of cotton and that ample land is available; that the development of cotton growing in Nigeria during the, last 10 years has been extremely slow; and that the crop last year available for export was only 15,000 bales; and, in view of these facts and of the urgent necessity of promoting the growth of cotton within the Empire, whether he will instruct the Governor of Nigeria to appoint a committee to consider and report upon the best steps to take to develop more rapidly the growing of cotton in Northern Nigeria.?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Ormsby-Gore): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, as is also the answer to the second part as regards much of the Northern Provinces. During the last 10 years the short native variety of cotton has been almost entirely replaced for export by the much more valuable longer staple variety, of which in 1915–16 121 bales were exported, 1919–20, 3,568 bales, in 1923–24, 15,035 bales. I am satisfied that the Nigerian Agricultural Department, which is working in close co-operation with the British Cotton Growing Association and the Empire Cotton Growing Corporation, is working on right lines, and that as
further railways and increased transport, facilities become available the export of cotton of good quality will go on increasing. Accordingly, I see no sufficient reason to ask the Governor to appoint a local committee on this question.

Mr. WILSON: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is a number of very able business men on the Legislative Council of Nigeria, who would give advice on the subject of increasing the growth of cotton in Northern Nigeria and improving the present position?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: We rely in this very expert matter very largely on specially-trained agricultural officers, and on the co-operation of the two great associations originating in Lancashire and dealing with cotton. We have their advice and assistance, and I think it is quite sufficient and better than a purely local committee of merchants dealing with other goods.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Will there be no change in the principle, hitherto adopted in Nigeria, of having native cultivation rather than plantation cultivation?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: That does not arise out of the original question. There is no suggestion, except that made by Lord Leverhulme, for altering the present policy of the Government of Nigeria, and I dealt with that in my speech a few days ago.

TIN.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 10.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the Niger Company acts as forwarding and handling agents for a large number of companies operating on the tin fields; that the company, although receiving half the royalties on minerals, make applications through their representatives from time to time for mineral areas, particularly tin, and obtain grants in direct opposition to the tin companies, for whom they act as agents; and that some of those companies are small concerns and have practically no other choice than to appoint the Niger Company as their agents; and whether he, will consider taking steps to protect the rights and interests of these smaller companies?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, but I see no reason for interference by Government with such legitimate business of the Niger Company.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPIRE-GROWN SUGAR.

Colonel WOODCOCK: 11.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the amount of sugar produced in the Dominions for the last completed year; and the amount of same imported into this country during that period?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: The total amount of sugar produced in the British self-governing Dominions and in the Colonies during the year 1923, which is the last year for which complete figures are available, is approximately 968,000 tons. The quantity of sugar of Empire origin imported during the year ended 31st December, 1923, into the United Kingdom (from the 1st April of that year, Great Britain and Northern Ireland) was 690,664 cwts. refined, and 7,534,560 cwts. unrefined.

Colonel WOODCOCK: Do I understand that those figures are for 1923?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Yes.

Colonel WOODCOCK: When will the 1924 figures be ready?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: It takes a long time to collect the agricultural statistics from the British possessions, particularly from places like Uganda and similar Colonies, and we shall probably not get the full 1924 figures for another two months.

Major G. DAVIES: Do those figures include India?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: No; I said "the self-governing Dominions and Colonies and Protectorates."

Oral Answers to Questions — ARABIA.

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: 12.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any subsidies are at present being paid to rulers in Arabia; if so, to whom and on what terms?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: No subsidies are being paid from Imperial funds to rulers in Arabia.

Captain BENN: Is there not an item in the Colonial Office Vote for £20,000?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: It is not a subsidy. As I explained in an answer last week, it was put in in case other money becomes payable in connection with the settlement between two conflicting claims in the Southern part of the Red Sea.

Captain BENN: It is, in fact, put in for the purpose of subsidising somebody?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: No, that is not the case. I think I may say that it is very improbable that the amount will be expended.

Oral Answers to Questions — CROWN COLONIES (PUBLIC WORKS AUDITS).

Mr. HAYES: 13.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the heavy expenditure now involved in the carrying out of extensive capital works departmentally by direct labour in our Crown Colonies, he will consider the advisability of supplementing or extending the at present restricted duties of the local officers acting under the Director of Colonial Audit in London by the introduction of specially trained technical officers, and by so doing relieve heads of executive Departments, already fully occupied with their ordinary recurrent duties, of the great responsibility of checking the technical details of the accounts for such works?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I have no information which tends to indicate that the heads of the technical Departments concerned in the Colonies are handicapped in the performance of their ordinary duties by reason of their responsibilities in connection with the expenditure incurred on capital works carried out departmentally.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENYA.

EDUCATION EXPENDITURE.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 16.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that in February of this year the Kenya Government, subject to his sanction, proposed to raise a loan of £125,000 for purposes of education of Europeans, Indians, Arabs, and Africans; and that this proposal was reviewed by a committee consisting of three officials and
all the elected European members of council, which suggested that the sum of £80,000 should be spent on one European school; and whether he proposes to sanction this allocation or to insist upon a more equal division of the total sum over the four races in question?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: The provision referred to represents capital expenditure mainly on buildings, and I am confident that the expenditure of £80,000 on a central school for European boys at Nairobi is both essential and urgent. Not only in Kenya, but elsewhere in Africa, it is desirable that better facilities should be provided for European children who have in most cases no prospect of education elsewhere. The proposed loan also provides for capital expenditure on the erection of a new technical school for Indians, the extension and improvement of the present Indian school at Nairobi, improvements in the Arab schools on the coast, and £25,000 for the erection of a new industrial training depot for African artisans. Further, a training school for African visiting teachers is already in course of erection, and I welcome the increasing provision that is being made in Kenya for the better education of all races in the colony.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that £80,000 out of £125,000 is the proper proportion to spend on a school for Europeans, in view of the fact that there is already a school for Europeans in Nairobi; and before he sanctions this enormous allocation out of the £125,000 for the whites in Kenya, will he inquire how many children in Kenya are likely to take advantage of the £80,000 building?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I am satisfied, from what I saw, that the most urgent requirement in East Africa, in the interest of the native population, is to prevent a number of uneducated Europeans growing up in their midst, and the most unsatisfactory buildings in Nairobi are the present European schools. This should be done at once and, as I pointed out in the answer, in addition to this £125,000 allocation, other sums are already being spent on the education services for the other purposes. I hope this will be sanctioned at the earliest possible moment.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that the Minister for Education in Kenya himself protested against the money being spent in this way?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I had a letter recently from the head of the Department of Education saying that this was a most important matter. At present there is no science laboratory and no provision for scientific education for the children of white officials. I hope these new schools will be built to educate the children of European artisans, not only in Kenya, but from the neighbouring territories as well. The well-to-do settlers have their own private schools, but there is inadequate provision for the less well-to-do Europeans in East Africa.

SIR ROBERT CORYNDON (MEMORIAL).

Sir ROBERT HAMILTON: 21.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can give the House any information as to a proposed memorial in Kenya to the late Governor, Sir Robert Coryndon?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I have no official information on the subject, and such references to it as I have seen in the local Press are less definite than the message published here in the "Times" of the 3rd April.

Oral Answers to Questions — JAFFA (ARRESTS).

Mr. SAKLATVALA: 17.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many arrests have taken place in Jaffa during the visit of Lord Balfour, and for what causes?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Sixteen persons were arrested on the day of Lord Balfour's arrival in Jaffa on a magistrate's warrant for action likely to cause an immediate breach of the peace. They were all members of a small Communist group. No breach of the peace actually occurred.

Mr. SAKLATVALA: Cannot His Majesty's Government devise a plan for introducing British civilisation into other people's countries without the use of prison cells and air bombs?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: These 16 Communists issued inflammatory attacks on Lord Balfour of the most insulting nature
and distributed them about the town. I think the action taken by the Palestine Government was absolutely essential; otherwise there would have been a serious breach of the peace.

Mr. SAKLATVALA: Would not 16 young Englishmen do the same thing if an Arab chief came here to talk to you and tell you how you ought to live?

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPIRE SETTLEMENT.

Sir HARRY BRITTAIN: 20.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is able to give the number of those migrating to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, respectively, during the first three months of the current year?

Mr. A. M. SAMUEL (Secretary, Over-seas Trade Department): The particulars for the first quarter of 1925 are not yet available, but I am sending my hon. Friend a copy of the "Board of Trade Journal" for 26th March, in which these particulars for each quarter of last year are given.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

BRITISH TRADE REPRESENTATIVES (AMERICA).

Captain CROOKSHANK: 22.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department if it is the intention of his Department to open an office in New York; and, if so, when?

Mr. SAMUEL: It is intended to establish at New York within the next three months a branch of the Commercial Secretariat of the Embassy at Washington. The junior of the two Commercial Diplomatic Officers at Washington will be detached to assume charge of the new office, which will work in conjunction with His Majesty's Consulate-General at New York.

Sir F. WISE: What will be the extra cost?

Mr. SAMUEL: I cannot state offhand. But I bear in mind the necessity of keeping it as low as possible.

Captain CROOKSHANK: 23.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether he will consider the advisability of opening an office and maintaining a Commercial Secretary at San Francisco, with a view to fostering British trade on the Pacific coast of the United States of America?

Mr. SAMUEL: I am afraid that expense will not at the moment admit of the appointment of a Commercial Secretary at San Francisco. The Commercial Counsellor at Washington has, however, recently paid a visit to the Pacific coast of the United States in order to investigate conditions and prospects of British trade, and he has furnished a very valuable report which has been communicated to the interests concerned. His Majesty's Consul-General at San Francisco and the other Consular officers on the Pacific coast have also been invited to pay special attention to commercial questions.

LACE AND EMBROIDERY.

Colonel WOODCOCK: 41.
asked the President of the Board of Trade the total value of lace and embroidery exported from this country for the year 1914 and also for the last completed year; and will he give the number of persons employed in this industry for the year 1914 and the last year?

Mr. SAMUEL: The answer contains a number of figures, and my hon. and gallant Friend will perhaps agree to its being circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the reply:

The particulars asked for with regard to cotton and silk lace are as follows:



1914.
1924.



£
£


Cotton lace and plain net and articles thereof (except embroidery)
3,486,723
2,498,312


Silk lace and mixed (silk and other materials) lace and articles thereof (except embroidery)
84,011
76,234


Exports of embroidery and needlework (except linen embroidery) in 1924 were valued at £110,634. A comparable figure for 1914 is not available. With regard to the latter part of the question, the
estimated number of insured persons in the lace industry in Great Britain and Northern Ireland was 20,330 in July last year, and 20.6 per cent. of this number were unemployed at the end of the year. Comparable figures for 1914 are not available.

IRISH FREE STATE (BRITISH MACHINERY).

Sir JOHN GANZONI: 52.
asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware of the movement in the Irish Free State in favour of putting a duty on imported British machinery and goods; and whether he will take steps to protect British manufactures and the thousands of workers in these industries if these duties are imposed?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): As regards the first part of the question, I have no information, and, as regards the second, I am afraid that I cannot answer a hypothetical question.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH EMPIRE EXHIBITION.

DISABLED EX-SERVICE MEN.

Captain GARRO-JONES: 25.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether he has now secured the consent of the executive and general manager of the British Empire Exhibition to the admittance of disabled ex-service men free of charge on one day in the week?

Mr. SAMUEL: I am informed by the British Empire Exhibition authorities that they will distribute free passes for the exhibition to the British Red Cross Society for the use of disabled men who are in hospital.

CATERING.

Captain GARRO-JONES: 26.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether, in the allocation of the new contracts for catering at the British Empire Exhibition; the management has laid down any conditions as to quality and prices of food?

Sir H. BRITTAIN: 27.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department what arrangements, if any, have been made with the various caterers at the British Empire Exhibition with regard to the utilisation of the products of the British Empire in their respective establishments?

Mr. SAMUEL: I am informed by the authorities of the British Empire Exhibition that it is stipulated in all the catering contracts that the refreshments shall be sound and wholesome, and that Empire materials only shall be used, wherever such a course be reasonably possible.

Captain GARRO-JONES: Has any stipulation been made with regard to reasonable prices?

Mr. SAMUEL: Competition will produce reasonable prices. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] A number of competing catering firms are doing the business this year, and the public will, no doubt, go to those firms which give the best value and the best food.

Mr. B. SMITH: Has the hon. Gentleman considered that they might as well come together to put up prices as come together to pull down prices.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE.

SMALL HOLDINGS (ADDITIONAL).

Mr. HURD: 28.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if he has in preparation means to open the way to land ownership for the 17,000 unsatisfied applicants for small holdings, including 3,243 ex-service men requiring 46,000 acres; and, if so, when these measures will come into operation?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Edward Wood): The question of the provision of additional small holdings is being carefully considered, and I hope to be in a position to submit to the House next year proposals for a new scheme to be brought into operation after the present scheme has been completed in 12 months' time.

Captain GEE: When the right hon. Gentleman is going into this question, will he also consider the advisability of purchasing hack the small holdings from those ex-service men who have not been able to make a success of them, if they are willing to sell?

WAGES, LINCOLNSHIRE.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 29.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that the fixing of the wages of the farm workers in Lincolnshire has been followed by levying new charges by
farmers on farm workers, such as for straw and coal carting; and whether anything can be done to stop this undermining of the intentions of the wages board and Parliament?

Mr. WOOD: I have had no official information of such cases. It is, of course, illegal for an employer to reckon in part payment of minimum wages fixed under the Agricultural Wages (Regulation) Act the value of any benefits or advantages other than those permitted by the order of the local agricultural wages committee. Neither of the wages committees for Lincolnshire has included the benefits mentioned in the question as allowable for this purpose, and, consequently, any such arrangements would be outside the payment of wages at the minimum rates.

Mr. NOEL BUXTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman ask for a reconsideration of rates by county committees in cases where a change of action by farmers has made a serious difference to the men?

Mr. WOOD: I will certainly consider the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman. Of course, he must not forget that it is always within the competence of the committees themselves to reconsider their own business.

Oral Answers to Questions — FISH.

Mr. B. SMITH: 30.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the prices which are being charged for fish, he will consider the advisability of taking over the control of the fish markets?

Mr. WOOD: As at present advised, I am not prepared to adopt the suggestion made by the hon. Member.

Mr. SMITH: Will the right hon. Gentleman in the consumers' interest undertake to send somebody to Grimsby fish market to see what happens there with regard to the price of fish?

Mr. WOOD: I should like, if I could, to go myself.

Mr. SMITH: I will take the right hon. Gentleman there if he would like to go.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the week before last 4,400 stone of first-class edible fish were sent from Fleetwood to the manure heap?

Mr. WOOD: No, I am afraid I have had no notice of that matter. If the hon. Member wishes to ask a question upon it he should put it down.

Mr. SMITH: 31.
also asked the Minister of Agriculture what, steps are being taken to encourage the scientific preservation of fish?

Mr. WOOD: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to a similar question put to me by my hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Sir H. Brittain) on the 23rd March last, a copy of which I am sending to him.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSE OF COMMONS (MR. WATTS'S PAINTING "KING ALFRED."

Mr. SANDEMAN: 32.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, whether, on account of its irritating effect on Members, he will remove from Committee Room No. 10 the Painting of Alfred inciting the Saxons to prevent the landing of the Danes?

Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSON (for the FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS): I ant not aware that the picture in question has such an effect on Members as to justify its removal.

Mr. SANDEMAN: Will the hon. Gentleman go into the Committee Room for five minutes, contemplate the legs of King Alfred, and having done so, try to concentrate on the work going on in the Committee Room; and if he comes to the same conclusion as I have reached, will he, at least, have the picture removed to the other end of the room? Failing that, will the hon. Gentleman say whether he himself would like to go down to posterity depicted with legs on him like those of King Alfred in the picture?

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I have looked at the picture this morning. I do not know if the hon. Member is aware that it is a very fine example of the early work of Watts, one of our most celebrated artists.

Major HORE-BELISHA: In view of this monarch's connection with cooking, will the hon. Gentleman have the picture put up in the Tea Room?

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Will the hon. Gentleman consider the desirability of getting a picture painted for the other end of the room showing the Members for Glasgow resisting the invasion of the Irish into Scotland?

Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: Will the hon. Gentleman consider the putting of another picture on the side wall of the room, showing the hon. Gentleman the Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) being rejected by Glasgow at an Election?

Oral Answers to Questions — CATTLE (HUMANE KILLER).

Mr. ERSKINE: 37.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has considered the matter of humane slaughtering for cattle whether any special implement has been tested and approved: and is it the intention to legislate in favour of uniformity of method all over the country?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): There is a model byelaw for the compulsory use of a mechanical instrument. Any local authority can adopt this bye-law, and over 140 have already done so. In the opinion of my right hon. Friend, it is not advisable to specify any particular instrument or, at the present time, to introduce legislation.

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: Is the number 140, to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, an increase in the last year or not?

Sir K. WOOD: Yes, I think that is so.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING.

STEEL HOUSES.

Mr. REGINALD SHAW: 38.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has considered the possibility of erecting specimen steel houses at the British Empire Exhibition; and, if so, whether all types will be represented?

Sir K. WOOD: The British Empire Exhibition authorities are arranging for a display of various new methods of
house construction, and it is understood that several methods in which steel construction is employed will be represented.

CHEPSTOW.

Mr. WIGNALL: 33.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, whether the Bulwark and Hardwicke houses at Chepstow have reverted to the Government; if so, whether he is aware that the bulk of the tenants have for some time been suffering from unemployment, with the result that the rents and rates are considerably in arrears; and whether special consideration will be given to the position of these people with respect to their arrears, and action taken to reduce the rents now charged?

Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: The management of these estates has only recently been transferred from the Shipping Liquidation Department to the charge of the Office of Works. The matters to which the hon. Member refers are receiving consideration, but it may be a little time before a decision can be arrived at.

Mr. WIGNALL: If the rents that have been collected for some considerable time have been paid over to the Shipping Liquidation Department, then, presumably, the Government receive the amount of money or rent that is paid?

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: The transfer took place only five days ago, and the Office of Works have only had to deal with the matter during the last five days. We are looking into it very carefully, and we will let the hon. Member know.

Mr. WIGNALL: It needs looking into.

Oral Answers to Questions — OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: 39.
asked the Minister of Health the number of persons between 65 years of age and 70; and the estimated proportion of the same that would be able to obtain an old age pension under the existing income limit restrictions?

Sir K. WOOD: The number of persons in England and Wales between 65 and 70 years of age is estimated to be 1,029,056. My right hon. Friend is not aware of any
basis upon which a trustworthy estimate such as is suggested in the second part of the question could be framed.

Oral Answers to Questions — EX-RANKER OFFICERS (PENSIONS).

Major CRAWFURD: 45.
asked the Prime Minister when the day promised for the discussion of the ex-ranker officers' pensions will be given; and will the decision be left to a free vote of the House?

The PRIME MINISTER: I propose that the discussion promised shall take place on Monday, 18th May. For that purpose, the Government intend to put down a Motion in the following terms:
That the Report of the Barnes Committee on the claims of professional ex-ranker officers (Cmd. 212[...]) be adopted by this House.
As I have already stated, this is not a matter which the Government would be justified in leaving to a free vote of the House.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPIRE WIRELESS.

Mr. HURD: 46.
asked the Prime Minister if he is aware of the growing diversity of policy and practice as between this country and the Dominions in the matter of Empire wireless facilities; and whether, with a view to unity in this matter, he will adopt the suggestion of the Empire Press Union and invite the Governments of the Dominions to confer with our own Government, so as to bring an end to the present confusion and give the Empire a system at least as effective as those of foreign countries?

The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir. My information does not bear out the suggestions made by my hon. Friend. The arrangements in connection with the institution of the Imperial Wireless Service are proceeding satisfactorily, and there is general accord between His Majesty's Government and the self-governing Dominions in regard to the subject.

Mr. HURD: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that representatives of all the Dominions, especially as regards the Press, do not at all take that view, and that they believe that the whole thing is moving into confusion?

The PRIME MINISTER: May I suggest to my hon. Friend that not everything that appears in the Press on this subject is quite accurate, and that it might be useful to him to put himself in communication with my hon. Friend the Postmaster-General, who, I am sure, would be glad to-talk with him on the subject?

Oral Answers to Questions — BROADCASTING.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 48.
asked the Prime Minister in which way it, in intended to review the whole position of broadcasting next winter; and whether a select or other committee will be appointed to look into the question?

The PRIME MINISTER: The whole question of broadcasting will have to be examined in anticipation of the expiry of the existing agreement with the British Broadcasting Company on the 31st December, 1926, but I am not at present in a position to make any further statement.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Does that mean that we must wait until the following winter, which I understand was the intention of the right hon. Gentleman, before the question of broadcasting Parliament will be inquired into?

The PRIME MINISTER: No. The present agreement comes to an end 12 months from the end of this year, but I think we shall have to begin to consider it in the course of this winter, and that is what I meant in the reply I gave the other day.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Would not the right hon. Gentleman consider the setting up of a small Committee of both Houses to look into the question of broadcasting the proceedings of Parliament?

The PRIME MINISTER: That is obviously one of the things that will have to be considered when the whole question is being discussed.

Oral Answers to Questions — NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

Mr. DALTON: 40.
asked the Minister of Pensions what machinery has been provided for keeping him informed of the applications for pension rejected by local officers of the Ministry as outside the seven years' limit?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Lieut.-Colonel Stanley): No special machinery is in operation for the record of applications of any kind which are clearly outside the Royal Warrants and Statutes, and which, therefore, cannot be entertained by the Ministry.

Mr. DALTON: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman take steps to set up such machinery so as to keep himself informed of the large number of these eases, many of which are very hard cases, which are being rejected under the present Regulations?

Lieut.-Colonel STANLEY: As a matter of fact, when a man writes in and makes a definite claim under Article 9, of course we do have a record, but where a man goes into an area office and asks whether he would be entitled to make an application, it is merely an inquiry, and we do not have any record of such cases.

Oral Answers to Questions — INTERNATIONAL LABOUR (EIGHT HOURS) CONVENTION.

Mr. B. SMITH: 49.
asked the Prime Minister whether the Government has decided to ratify the Eight-Hours Convention adopted by the International Labour Conference?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Betterton): I have been asked to reply. I regret that I am unable yet to add to the reply given on 10th February to the hon. Member for Elland (Mr. W. C. Robinson).

Sir GRATTAN DOYLE: How many countries have given statutory effect to this Convention?

Mr. BETTERTON: If I received notice of that question, I could give my hon. Friend particulars.

Mr. SMITH: Is it not a fact that most of the European countries have already agreed to ratify the Convention, subject to the condition that Great Britain also ratifies it?

Captain BRASS: Is it not a fact that ratification of this agreement would hinder the working-class people and increase unemployment?

Mr. BETTERTON: The answer to the last supplementary question is that that is a matter for argument, which I could rot deal with in answer to a question.

Sir G. DOYLE: Is it not a fact that several Continental countries have agreed to this, and that not one of them has carried it out?

Oral Answers to Questions — ART TREASURES (EXPORT).

Mr. GRIFFITHS: 50.
asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the sale of the Titian Venus and Adonis to America, the Government has been considering how to conserve art treasures in this country?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Guinness): Yes, Sir. The present Government desire to associate themselves with the statement made by the right hon. Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Horne) in this House on 3rd August, 1922, to which I would refer the hon. Member, as it is too long to quote.

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: Will the Government again consider the desirability of putting an Export Duty on works of art going out of this country?

Mr. GUINNESS: There is another question on that subject to-day, but, as a matter of fact, the method suggested by the right hon. Member for Hillhead of a schedule of particular pictures with a view to State purchase if necessary has hitherto proved entirely adequate, as, so far, no scheduled picture has been sold.

Mr. GRIFFITHS: May we assume that the Government will take steps to prevent these art treasures becoming a speculative and financial transaction?

Mr. GUINNESS: If the hon. Member will look up the reference which I have given him, he will find the whole policy set out. It is not a subject that is suitable for dealing with by question and answer across the Floor of this House.

Mr. J. RAMSAY MacDONALD: Did the Government consider it worth while putting this particular picture on the list?

Mr. GUINNESS: No; I mentioned that no picture on that list had yet been sold. The National Gallery already possess a picture by Titian of Venus and Adonis.

Mr. GEORGE HARVEY: 93.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider the desirability of imposing an export tax on pictures and objects of art sold by auction or by private treaty?

Mr. GUINNESS: The hon. Member's suggestion has been noted. It is one which has been exhaustively considered on several occasions. On the general question of conserving the art treasures of this country I would refer him to the answer given to-day to the hon. Member for Pontypool.

Oral Answers to Questions — OFFICIAL STATISTICS.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: 51.
asked the Prime Minister whether he is prepared to establish a central statistics bureau to co-ordinate official statistics, and from which the public could obtain statistics on all matters on which such statistics are prepared or received by public departments?

The PRIME MINISTER: A Committee was appointed in 1920 to consider the question of the institution of a bureau such as my hon. Friend suggests. The majority of that Committee reported against, the proposal, but recommended that a permanent consultative Committee of statistical officers should be appointed in order to secure a greater measure of co-ordination between Departments. This Committee was set up in 1921, and meets regularly. I see no reason for making any change in the existing arrangements.

Oral Answers to Questions — IMPERIAL CONFERENCE.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: 53.
asked the Prime Minister whether the question of holding the next Imperial Conference in one of the Overseas Dominions has been considered by the Cabinet; and whether such a suggestion would meet with favourable consideration?

The PRIME MINISTER: His Majesty's Government would, of course, always be ready to consider, in consultation with the other Governments concerned, whether it would be practicable to hold a meeting of the Imperial Conference in one of the Overseas Dominions; but arrangements for these Conferences depend so much on the circumstances in which they are called that I fear it is impossible for me to give a definite reply to my hon. Friend's question.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSE OF LORDS.

Captain GARRO-JONES: 54.
asked the Prime Minister whether the Government is in any way identified with the Secretary of State for India in the views he propounded on the reform of the House of Lords last Thursday?

The PRIME MINISTER: My Noble Friend most plainly, and more than once, indicated that he was not expressing the views of the Government, and that, in fact, the Government had as yet reached no conclusion upon the matter. My Noble Friend added that he was making certain suggestions as an individual Peer which might afford a basis for discussion.

Captain BENN: But is not the Noble Lord the Secretary of State for India to be Chairman of the Cabinet Committee?

The PRIME MINISTER: No Chairman has yet been appointed.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the statements by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Twickenham (Sir W. Joynson-Hicks) on this matter last Friday night, and do they represent the views of the Government?

The PRIME MINISTER: No, I am afraid not.

Captain BENN: Have the Government any views at all on this matter?

Oral Answers to Questions — LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE.

Major STEEL: 57.
asked the Minister of Labour what steps are taken to ensure that resolutions agreed to by the International Labour Office., and ratified by the British Government, should also be ratified and put into operation by the Governments of those countries whose representatives have agreed to them?

Mr. BETTERTON: The Treaty of Versailles imposes no obligation on members of the International Labour Organisation to ratify draft conventions or accept recommendations adopted by the International Labour Conference, even if the Government delegates of the member have voted for the draft convention or recommendation, but it is
provided that members shall, within a specified period, bring the recommendation or draft convention before the authority or authorities within whose competence the matter lies for the enactment of legislation or other action. It is possible for a State to ratify a given convention with the proviso that the ratification shall not take effect until other States have also ratified, and the Government is now considering what steps can best be taken, whether by this or other means, to secure that conventions ratified by this country shall also be ratified by the other States chiefly affected by their provisions.

GERMANY.

Captain BENN: 60.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any information as to the willingness of Germany to enter the League of Nations; and, if so, on what, if any, conditions?

Mr. McNEILL: The hon. and gallant Member is, of course, aware of the communication made by the German Government to the League of Nations, and of the Council's reply. His Majesty's Government have no later information.

Captain BENN: May we take it the German Government still insist on the condition they laid down?

Mr. McNEILL: I have no further information than what has appeared in the Press.

Oral Answers to Questions — RUSSIA.

ATTACKS ON LORD CURZON.

Lieut.-Colonel JAMES: 58.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention hs been called to recent issues of the Russian papers and official organs of the Soviet Government, the "Pravda" and "Isvestia," in which violent attacks are made on the late Lord Curzon and which contain offensive cartoons directed against the Crown; whether he is aware that these journals are being gratuitously distributed in this country by an official Russian agency; and whether he will draw the attention of the Soviet Government to this breach of the undertaking regarding propaganda?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Ronald McNeill): His Majesty's Government are aware that offensive articles and cartoons appear from time to time in the Soviet Press which is on sale in this country. The sale is, I believe, small, and His Majesty's Government have no evidence of any considerable free distribution. I do not suppose that these Russian publications have any effect upon opinion here, unless it be to excite disgust, and they may well be left to the contempt they deserve.

Mr. LANSBURY: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether there is any limitation of the circulation of anti-Bolshevist literature amongst the British delegation in Moscow—whether the "Morning Post" is sold?

Mr. McNEILL: I have no information.

Mr. LANSBURY: The right hon. Gentleman knows it as well as I do. Of course it is.

TRADE UNION DELEGATION.

Lieut.-Colonel JAMES: 84.
asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that a delegation of Russian Communists, under the leadership of M. Tomsky, has arrived in this country and what is the purpose of their visit?

Captain BENN: On a point of Order. May I, Mr. Speaker, draw your attention to this question, and inquire whether an hon. Member is entitled to ask the Home Office for particulars of any alien landing in this country and what is the purpose that he declares to be the object of his visit?

Mr. SPEAKER: The Home Office under the present law has certain duties in regard to the admission of aliens, and for that reason the aliens come under the administration of the Home Secretary.

Captain BENN: On a further point of Order. May I suggest to you, Sir, that the purpose of the question is not to get administrative details, and is it not the case that any question which contains any political innuendo would be very properly refused at the Table?

Mr. SPEAKER: One of the most difficult parts of my duty is dealing with questions that would appear to have
some hidden meaning. I do not pretend to have an inside knowledge of 600 minds, but I do my best in the matter.

Mr. B. SMITH: You do it very well, Sir.

Lieut.-Colonel JAMES: On a point of Order. Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman entitled to impute motives?

Mr. MACLEAN: Would a Member of this House be in Order in putting a question down to the Home Office, or the Prime Minister, asking what was the purpose of the visit of any foreign royalty to this country? Would that question be accepted at the Table?

Mr. SPEAKER: I have known such questions from time to time, but I endeavour to prevent the Order Paper being improperly used. With respect to the present question, I did not see anything in it calling for remark.

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir William Joynson-Hicks): I would refer to the answer which I gave on Thursday last to the hon. and gallant Members for Chertsey (Sir P. Richardson) and Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft).

Oral Answers to Questions — PROPOSED FIVE-POWER PACT.

Captain BENN: 59.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any official reply has been returned to the recent German proposal for a pact guaranteeing the Rhine frontiers; and whether any such reply will be made by the Allies in common?

Mr. McNEILL: His Majesty's Government have so far sent no written reply to the German proposal. With regard to the second part of the hon. and gallant Member's question, I would refer to the answer which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs gave on the 1st April to the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Lees-Smith).

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 65.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it was stated in the recent German Governmental proposals for a pact of security that the German Government renounced the idea of altering the eastern frontier of Germany by war; and
whether this has been made clear to the Allied Governments by His Majesty's Government?

Mr. McNEILL: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the statement which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs made on the 24th March, and to which there is nothing to add.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Might I have an answer to the last part of the question?

Mr. McNEILL: I do not see that that has anything to do with His Majesty's Government.

Oral Answers to Questions — EGYPTIAN TRIBUTE LOAN.

Sir F. WISE: 61.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the actual amount deposited for the Egyptian tribute loan of 1891 and 1894; where it is deposited; and the interest paid on the deposit?

Mr. McNEILL: His Majesty's Government have no information beyond that which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs gave to the hon. Member on the 30th March. But Lord Allenby will be asked to make inquiries of the Egyptian Government.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

SMALLHOLDERS.

Mr. WESTWOOD: 66.
asked the Secretary for Scotland the number of smallholders in Scotland in the years 1922, 1923 and 1924, respectively?

The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Sir John Gilmour): The numbers of holdings in Scotland exceeding one and not exceeding 50 acres in extent, according to the returns made to the Board of Agriculture in 1922, 1923 and 1924, were 50,278, 50,422 and 50,545 respectively. An addition of, approximately, 5,000 should be made to those figures in respect of holdings exceeding 50 acres in extent, but of an annual value not exceeding £50.

Mr. JOHNSTON: 70.
asked the Secretary for Scotland the numbers of new holdings created and the number of holdings enlarged during the past 12 months, with a statement showing how these figures compare with recent years?

Sir J. GILMOUR: During the year ending the 31st December last, 269 new holdings and 126 enlargements of existing holdings were formed by the Board of Agriculture for Scotland. The corresponding figures for the previous five years are:


1919
…
…
282 and 114


1920
…
…
227 and 90


1921
…
…
415 and 307


1922
…
…
433 and 304


1923
…
…
322 and 108

Mr. JOHNSTON: Do the figures the right hon. Gentleman has just given take any account of the number of holdings that have been filled up?

Sir J. GILMOUR: Wherever a holding becomes vacant under any scheme, it is at once refilled.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Does the right hon. Gentleman include these numbers filled up in the figures he has just given?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I shall require notice of that question.

ARABLE CULTIVATION.

Mr. WESTWOOD: 68.
asked the Secretary for Scotland the number of acres of Land under arable cultivation in Scotland in the years 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, and 1924, respectively?

Sir J. GILMOUR: The number of acres of land under arable cultivation in Scotland, including land under rotation grasses and clover, in each of the years specified was as follows:

Acres.


1920
…
…
…
3,380,237


1921
…
…
…
3,349,067


1922
…
…
…
3,338,068


1923
…
…
…
3,298,142


1924
…
…
…
3,273,116

EMIGRATION.

Mr. JOHNSTON: 69.
asked the Secretary for Scotland the numbers of emigrants who have left Scotland during the past 12 months?

Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: The number of British subjects recorded as having left permanent residence in Scotland to take up permanent residence in non-European countries during the 12 months ended 31st January, 1925 (the latest period of 12 months for which statistics are avail-
able), was 40,174. Residence for a year or more is treated as permanent residence for the purpose of this classification.

Mr. MAXTON: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us how many of these families have left under the Empire Settlement Act, 1922?

Mr. SAMUEL: I shall be glad to give the hon. Member information if he will put down a separate question, as I have not the figures in my mind.

Mr. HARDIE: Will the hon. Gentleman say whether the number he has given us of those who have left Scotland has anything to do with the decrease in the cultivation of land, figures for which have just been given?

Mr. BUCHANAN: May I ask if these figures include emigrants to the Colonies, and, if not, can he give us any approximate figures as to the emigrants to the Colonies?

Mr. SAMUEL: I think they do come within the reply I gave, but if the hon. Member will put down a question, I shall be very glad to give him an answer.

Mr. HARDIE: May I have an answer to my question, whether those figures have any relation to the land?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is a matter of opinion.

INFANTILE MORTALITY.

Mr. THOMAS HENDERSON: 73.
asked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health whether he can state the death rate in the cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, and Aberdeen of children from one to five years of age, and the corresponding death rate in the rest of Scotland, for the years 1923–24 and 1924–25?

Captain ELLIOT (Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health, Scotland): As the answer involves a tabular statement, I propose, with the hon. Member's permission, to circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

Statistics for the financial years referred to in the question are not available, but for the calendar years 1923 and 1924, respectively, the death rate per 1,000 of the estimated population of
children aged over one year but under five years is as follows:




1923.
1924.


Glasgow
…
21˙4
28˙5


Edinburgh
…
17˙3
19˙7


Dundee
…
25˙3
30˙5


Aberdeen
…
14˙8
19˙5


Rest of Scotland
…
10˙2
14˙1

AGRICULTURAL WORKERS.

Mr. JOHNSTON: 71.
asked the Secretary for Scotland if he is in a position to give figures from the last Census, contrasting the populations now engaged in agricultural pursuits with the populations so engaged at the three previous Census periods?

Sir J. GILMOUR: The number of persons engaged in agricultural occupations in Scotland according to the Census returns in 1921 was 194,301. The numbers of persons so engaged in 1891, 1901 and 1911 were 213,060, 217,409 and 209,410 respectively.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Have these Census figures been compiled on the same basis in each of the Census periods, or was not the basis altered in 1911 to bring in the relatives?

CALTON GAOL, EDINBURGH.

Mr. MAXTON: 72.
asked the Secretary for Scotland if it is proposed to sell Calton Gaol, Edinburgh, or if he will consider the retention of this historic building in national ownership?

Sir J. GILMOUR: The question of the disposal of the Calton Gaol is at present receiving my consideration, and I am in communication with the Town Council of Edinburgh on the subject.

Mr. MAXTON: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any indication as to whether these buildings might not be used for other national purposes?

Sir J. GILMOUR: The fullest possible consideration is being given to the various aspects of that question.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION.

SECONDARY SCHOOLS (FREE PLACES).

Mr. GROVES: 76.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that, by Circular No. 1,340, dated 4th September, 1924, local education authorities were offered by the Board of
Education an increased grant of £2 per head for free-place pupils in secondary schools in excess of 25 per cent. of the aggregate number of pupils on 1st October, 1924, and for succeeding years a grant of £3 per head; whether he is aware that on 9th February, 1925, the Board despatched Circular No. 1,352, stating that the Board bad decided to withdraw such grant; and whether, as each subsequent Circular will preclude the entrance of many prospective pupils, he will give the matter special and personal consideration and withdraw such subsequent Order?

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Lord Eustace Percy): I am aware of the position as represented in the first two parts of the question. As regards the third part, there is nothing in Circular No. 1,352 which precludes local education authorities from awarding additional free places. The Circular was the result of very special and personal consideration on my part, and I am not prepared to re-open the question.

Mr. GROVES: Is the Noble Lord aware that what he has just said means imposing further additional duties upon the local education authorities, and that they cannot afford to hear any more expense?

Lord E. PERCY: That is a general question of the grant, and not a question of specially making free places.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS (WEST RIDING, YORKSHIRE).

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 78.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether the West Riding (Yorkshire) Education Committee have yet purchased a site at Hatfield, near Doncaster, for an elementary school; and, if so, is it the intention of the committee to provide temporary accommodation pending the erection of a permanent school?

Lord E. PERCY: I have no later information on either point than that given in my reply to the hon. Member on the 19th March.

Mr. WILLIAMS: 79.
also asked the President of the Board of Education whether the West Riding (Yorkshire) Education Committee have yet purchased a site at Armthorpe, near Doncaster, for an elementary school; and, if so, can he state how long it will be before a temporary school will be erected?

Lord E. PERCY: The local education authority informed the Board, an the 21st March that they had not, up to that date, been successful in obtaining any land upon which to erect the proposed new school at Armthorpe, or upon which even temporary accommodation could be erected. The authority are continuing their efforts. Once land can be secured I have no doubt that every effort will be made to erect temporary accommodation with the least possible delay.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Is it not perfectly true to say that the local education authority refused, or failed to send on the information called for; and if the Noble Lord aware that land has been furnished in some cases for the erection of permanent buildings? Will he, therefore, undertake to intimate to the local education authority that they ought not to wait until this state of affairs exists before they take action?

Lord E. PERCY: I think the assumption is the question of the hon. Member that the local education authority has been remiss in this matter is quite untrue. I have seen the local authority on the matter of this school within the last few days.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Is the Noble Lord not aware that since the first question was put down a fortnight ago the authority has actually bought the land required for the erection of the school in question, and does he not think that they could have done that previously had they so desired?

Mr. WILLIAMS: 80.
further asked if the Minister was aware that the Thorne Colliery Company intend to erect nearly 2,000 houses during the next few years; that the school accommodation will soon be inadequate; and whether any steps are being taken by the local education committee to meet the requirements in this district?

Lord E. PERCY: I have seen a statement in the Press to the effect that the Thorne Colliery Company are desirous of erecting 1,800 houses in the course of the next few years, and I am aware that the existing public elementary schools serving this area are nearly full. With regard to the last part of the question, I can only refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave him on the 19th
March last. I have no doubt that the position is being kept under the careful observation of the local authority.

TEACHERS' SUPERANNUATION.

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: 81.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware of the hardship caused to old teachers owing to the fact that pensioners in receipt of allowances under the School Teachers (Superannuation) Act, 1918, receive no benefit under the Pensions (Increase) Acts, 1920 and 1924; and whether he will introduce legislation to remove this hardship?

Lord E. PERCY: I am aware of the fact stated in the first part of the question, but I cannot undertake to introduce legislation amending the Pensions (Increase) Acts, 1920 and 1924, which apply to many other classes of pre-War pensioners besides teachers.

Lieut.-Coloniel ACLAND-TROYTE: Does the Noble Lord consider that the payment of £62 per year is sufficient for a teacher after 40 years' service, especially in view of the fact that teachers were admittedly underpaid before the War?

Lord E. PERCY: Yes, Sir, but that would apply to many cases and to many other pensioners under the Pensions (Increase) Acts, and there is no case that I can see for dealing with teachers separately from other pensioners included in those Acts.

Mr. P. HARRIS: Does the Noble Lord not think it possible to amend the Superannuation Bill now before the House, and include this class of teachers and ex-teachers in it?

Lord E. PERCY: No doubt, it would be possible to amend any Bill, but I think it would be undesirable in view of what I have said.

Oral Answers to Questions — REGIMENTAL BANDS (CIVIL ENGAGEMENTS).

Colonel DAY: 82.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of the continued serious depression in the entertainment industry, as a result of which a large number of musicians
are totally unemployed; and, seeing that the practice of permitting the regimental bands of His Majesty's Forces to accept private employment is one of the causes of this depression, will he issue instructions that service bands must not accept private engagements to the detriment of civilians?

Captain HACKING: My right hon. Friend has no knowledge of the conditions referred to in the first part of the question. But he would point out that military bands are permitted to accept civil engagements in response to a public demand for their services, and that they may not accept such engagements at lower rates than would be charged by civilian bands whose members belong to the Musicians' Union. My right hon. Friend is not prepared to issue instructions to the effect desired by the hon. Member.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRAFFIC REGULATIONS, STRATFORD.

Mr. GROVES: 83.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will cause special investigation to be undertaken by the Police Commissioner respecting the present exceptional danger to the public who desire to cross the Broadway, Stratford, and the road at Stratford Market Station, inasmuch as the vehicular traffic has seriously increased lately; and will he investigate the reason why there is only one policeman on duty at each of those points, although the public has frequently expressed through the local Member of Parliament the necessity for additional police assistance there?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The Commissioner informs me that there is no exceptional danger to pedestrians at either place. The accidents known to the police to have occurred at Stratford Broadway during the year 1924 were in fact lower than any year since 1920, and those by Stratford Market Station are just up to the average for those four years. The police employed at each place are considered adequate for the purpose, having regard to the present strength of the force.

Mr. GROVES: I was born there and have lived there all my life. [HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"] I put down this
question perfectly seriously. I see the danger and I beg to assure the right hon. Gentleman—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"]

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH CELANESE COMPANY.

Mr. OLIVER: 85.
asked the Home Secretary whether he will state, in specific terms, what steps have been taken by his Department to reduce the high rate of sickness among the operatives at the British Celanese Company, Spondon, arising from the use of acetone in the manufacture of artificial silk?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The matter is a highly technical one, and is still under investigation. The works were visited last week by one of the medical inspectors, who reports that a number of the cases of sickness which recently occurred there were cases of influenza, and that the effects of the acetone on the workers have not been so serious as represented. Ho states, however, that the workers are being affected to some extent, and that some improvements are needed in the arrangements. One of the engineering inspectors will visit the works to-morrow and advise as to the alterations required. As soon as his report is received, steps will be taken without delay to secure the necessary improvements.

Oral Answers to Questions — WHITE LEAD.

Mr. G. HARVEY: 86.
asked the Home Secretary whether His Majesty's Government propose to give effect, either in whole or in part, and to what extent, to the proposals of the draft convention of the International Labour Conference (Geneva, 1921) as to the use of white lead in painting buildings?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I am considering the introduction of a Bill to give effect to those proposals in the Draft Convention as to which there is general agreement, in order that the agreed regulations for the protection of the workers may be brought into operation as soon as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRISON COMMISSIONERS' REPORTS.

Captain ARTHUR EVANS: 87.
asked the Home Secretary if he has yet concluded arrangements with the Treasury
whereby members of a prison visiting committee shall be suplied with a free copy of the Prison Commissioners' Report on application?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I am still in communication with the Treasury on this subject. As I stated in reply to a previous question by the hon. and gallant Member, I hope that it will be possible to arrange for the supply of separate copies of this Report to such members of visiting committees as desire them, but I could not ask the Treasury to authorise the free supply of a sufficient number of copies to enable every member of every visiting committee to have a separate copy, whether he asked for it or not.

Captain EVANS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that only 300 copies of the Commissioners' Report are printed at the present time, and that in some cases Prison Commissioners have to purchase copies of their own Report Will he consider the provision of sufficient copies?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I am in communication with the Treasury. Naturally, neither the Treasury nor myself want to waste public money, but I think we shall provide as many copies as are really needed.

Oral Answers to Questions — POOR PERSONS (LEGAL ASSISTANCE).

Dr. SALTER: 88.
asked the Home Secretary whether a committee has yet been appointed to inquire into the question of adequate legal assistance for poor persons in the lower Courts; and, if not, whether, in view of the urgency of the question, it will be appointed and begin its inquiry as soon as possible?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: As this answer is rather a long one, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

The Lord Chancellor and myself are appointing a committee, under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice Finlay, to inquire what facilities exist for giving to poor persons advice with respect to their legal rights and liabilities and aid in the conduct of legal proceedings, whether civil or criminal (other than such civil proceedings
in the Supreme Court as fall within the scope of the existing Poor Persons' Rules), and to report what, if any, further steps should be taken in respect to these matters. A preliminary meeting is being held to-morrow with a view to some preparatory inquiries being issued during the Easter Recess. The composition of the committee is not quite complete, but I hope that the names will be published this week.

Oral Answers to Questions — LIQUOR TRAFFIC (CARLISLE).

Dr. SALTER: 89.
asked the Home Secretary whether he can state the amount of alcohol consumed per head of the population in the area controlled by the Liquor Control Board (Carlisle, etc.) as compared with the amount consumed per head by the rest of the population in Great Britain?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I regret that these figures are not available.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL DEBT.

Sir F. WISE: 91.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the amount that the National Debt has been increased by since 1921, when conversions were started, owing to the 3½ per cent. conversions being issued at a discount?

Mr. GUINNESS: The nominal increase of debt clue to conversion operations into, and the issue by tender of, 3½ per cent. Conversion Loan at a discount, amounts to £243,240,000.

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: When the right hon. Gentleman speaks of a nominal increase, is it not in fact a pro tanto reduction of the Sinking Fund?

Mr. GUINNESS: No, I do not think so.

Oral Answers to Questions — MOTOR VEHICLES (TAXATION).

Major CRAWFURD: 92.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider the imposition of a duty on motor spirit in lieu of the existing system of motor taxation?

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Colonel Ashley): I have been asked to reply. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, the Departmental Committee, in a majority report, dated 27th June, 1924,
were unable to recommend the imposition of a motor spirit duty. In view of their recommendation, I am not prepared at the present time to take any action in the matter.

Major CRAWFURD: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that if this change be made he will get a more equitable form of tax, and he will have the consent of the people who are taxed?

Mr. SPEAKER: That matter cannot now be debated.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

PRINCIPAL ASSISTANT SECRETARIES.

Mr. DALTON: 95.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury what are the grounds on which the Treasury approve the creation of a post as principal assistant secretary; how many of these posts had been authorised on the 1st January last in the Ministries of Health, Labour, and Pensions; what was the number of assistant secretaries then allowed in the same Ministries; on what date was authority given for a second principal assistant secretary in the Ministry of Pensions; and to what extent had the subordinate staff of that Department fallen from its highest point at the time?

Mr. GUINNESS: Posts of principal assistant secretary are approved by the Treasury in the light of the responsibilities required to be discharged in such cases. As the information asked for in the remainder of the question involves a number of figures, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the information:

The number of authorised posts of the grade of principal assistant secretary and of assistant secretary in the Ministries mentioned in the question on the 1st January last was as folows:

Ministry of Health.

Ministry of Labour.

Ministry of Pensions.

A few other posts in these Departments are remunerated on the same scales, but do not properly belong to the above grades.

Authority was given for the second post of principal assistant secretary in the Ministry of Pensions on 13th October, 1921. At that date the total staff of the Department, including the staff in local committee offices, which was not at that time under the direct control of the Ministry, was, approximately, 31,000, which is about 3 per cent. below the highest figure reached.

PERMANENT UNDER-SECRETARIES.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 98.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the Departments in which the Permanent Under-Secretary ranks above the Parliamentary Under-Secretary and in the absence of the Secretary of State or Minister acts as his deputy; in which Departments a contrary practice prevails; and what are the reasons for the difference?

Mr. GUINNESS: I am not sure that I fully appreciate what the right hon. and gallant Member has in mind. In no circumstances are the responsibilities of Ministers of the Crown to Parliament susceptible of delegation to an official; in the absence of a Secretary of State or other principal Minister, provision would invariably be made for the discharge of his Ministerial duties by some other Minister, who might be, as occasion required, either the Parliamentary Under-Secretary or some other Minister.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether there is a difference of practice in any of the chief Departments of State as to the position of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary relative to the Permanent Under-Secretary?

Mr. GUINNESS: After considerable research by the officials I have not been able to trace any such difference. If the right hon. Gentleman can send me any
particulars, I shall be glad to look into them.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS (OUTSTANDING CLAIMS).

Sir GERVASE BECKETT: 96.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury how many claims are still unsettled by the Ministry of Munitions for goods supplied by engineering and other firms; what steps do the Ministry propose to take in order to expedite the settlement of these claims; and is he aware of the great hardship caused to many small traders by the delay?

Mr. GUINNESS: There are a few small claims recently received for goods supplied by engineering and other firms to the Ministry of Munitions. These claims amount to, approximately, £3,000 and are still the subject of correspondence. The necessary steps are being taken to expedite their settlement.

Sir G. BECKETT: 97.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that a fiat has been granted to permit Mr. T. P. Woodhead, of Leeds, to proceed with a petition of right in the High Court against the Treasury; and whether he will agree that this and other similar cases shall be submitted to an independent referee for arbitration and settlement, in view of the high costs involved by legal proceedings which the petitioners may be unable to bear?

Mr. GUINNESS: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. A claim was preferred by this firm arising out of a contract with the Ministry of Munitions. Acting under legal advice, the Ministry maintained there was no claim in law, but the firm was offered, and accepted, in 1921, a sum of£1,000 ex gratia in final satisfaction of the claim. In these circumstances, I am not prepared to refer the matter to arbitration. Any similar cases will be considered on their merits.

Sir G. BECKETT: Will my right hon. Friend give an undertaking that he will look personally into this question himself? Will he receive from me papers dealing with the question?

Mr. GUINNESS: I shall, of course, be happy to look into any facts which my hon. Friend may care to send me.

Oral Answers to Questions — LANDGUARD LIGHTHOUSE (DESTRUCTION).

Sir FREDERICK G. RICE: (by Private Notice) asked the President of the Board of Trade, in connection with the destruction of the Landguard Lighthouse on Saturday last, whether he can give the House any further information as to the condition of the wounded men, and if he is satisfied with the arrangements made for the temporary lighting of the entrance to Harwich Harbour, and whether he would consider the advisability of moving the light already placed temporarily at the position of the North Cliff Buoy to the position of the Cliff Buoy?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Burton Chadwick): I am informed by, Trinity House that the mechanic who was working at the lighthouse at the time of the accident is in hospital suffering from rather severe burns, but his condition, I am glad to say, is not considered critical. The other man only received very slight burns. As regards the last part of the question, the substitution of a lighted for an unlighted buoy at North Cliff is considered by Trinity House to be the best temporary arrangement until something more permanent can be decided.

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMAN REPARATION (RECOVERY) ACT.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: (by Private Notice) asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the text of the Anglo-German Agreement for the settlement of the 26 per cent. tax hitherto payable by German exporters for reparation recovery purposes as already published in Berlin is accurate; and how it is that it is not published simultaneously in London?

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Churchill): The Agreement was signed at so late an hour on Friday in Berlin that it was not possible to publish the text on Saturday morning in this country. The text was accordingly issued for publication this morning, and was, in fact, published by several newspapers. I understand that the text was published in Germany on Saturday afternoon. I have no doubt that the text so published
was accurate, but I have riot yet seen a copy. I would add that a White Paper on the subject has been presented to Parliament, and will be available during the course of this afternoon.

VISCOUNTESS ASTOR AND MR. HAYDAY.

PERSONAL APOLOGY.

Mr. HAYDAY: I rise for the purpose of calling the attention of the House to a statement made by the Noble Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) during the Debate in this House on Friday last, which I consider to bear the construction of a very serious implication so far as my personal character is concerned. Not only is my personal character involved, but so, if I might suggest, are the traditions and dignity of this House, for if the privilege attaching to statements made on the Floor of the House of Commons is to be used for making statements that are derogatory to the personal character of any Member of this House, it is a most serious handicap, leaving no opportunity for those statements being disproved in a Court of Law. The statement made by the Noble Lady to which I refer was:
If I told all that I knew about the hon. Member, I would give the House something to think of to-day. I might go into some of the company that the hon. Member has kept that would not reflect credit on him or his party.—[OFFICIALREPORT, 3rd April, 1925. col. 1735, Vol. 182.]
That is, perhaps, one of the most serious implications that has ever been made across the Floor of the House, from whatever party it may have come, and I feel that the consequences to a Member suffering under the disability of these most damaging implications and inferences throughout the country and throughout his constituency are so serious and severe that the matter calls for no play-time phrases, but for a definite and unqualified withdrawal and an expression of regret at the same time. I wrote on Friday to the Noble Lady a letter, of which this is a copy:

"Dear Lady Astor,

During the Debate this afternoon you stated, 'If I told all that I knew about the hon. Member, I would give the House something to think of to-day. I might go into
some of the company that the hon. Member has kept that would not reflect credit on him or his party.' This is a most serious and unwarranted attack upon my personal character which I cannot permit to pass. I propose raising the question on Monday with the Speaker as a matter of privilege and a question of personal honour. I think, upon reflection, you will see the gross imputation, and I trust you will either make a statement in the House on Monday, or send me a letter unqualifyingly withdrawing the imputation, so that I may read same to the House of Commons. Trusting to hear from you,

Yours sincerely,

ARTHUR HAYDAY."

I received a letter from the Noble Lady which I propose to read to the House.

Viscountess ASTOR: It was not from me. It was from my political secretary.

Mr. HAYDAY: That is the difficulty, but I had better not say anything more. When interruptions are complained of, it is really bad grace to say that "it is not from me but from my political secretary." I take it, however, that the Noble Lady accepts responsibility for this letter.

Viscountess ASTOR  indicated assent.

Mr. HAYDAY: This is the letter:

"4th April, 1925.

Dear Sir,

Lady Astor desires me to thank you for your letter, and to say with reference to the statement you quote, that she has already publicly withdrawn it. If, however, you wish to re-open the matter by raising it in the House on Monday, it is, of course, open to you so to do.

Yours faithfully."

I say, Mr. Speaker, that the tone of that letter is worse than the original. The public withdrawals, qualified as they were, conveyed a further imputation that whilst it may not be my moral character it was intended to question, it was that I was associated with the liquor trade, inferring that I receive payment from the liquor trade.

Viscountess ASTOR  indicated dissent.

Mr. HAYDAY: That I deny. I am more concerned about the record of the OFFICIAL REPORT, and I ask from the Noble Lady distinctly and definitely an apology, and an unqualified withdrawal of the statement made on Friday.

Viscountess ASTOR: I am rather surprised that the hon. Member has made reference to-day to what I said on Friday
in answer to an interjection by him, because I thought I had made then a complete withdrawal of the words I used. But if the hon. Member thought I did not, I will do so now most unreservedly. I only wish to add, what I hope he understands, that in what I said I had no intention of making any reference whatever to his personal character. The hon. Member has just made a reference to drink and temperance. As a matter of fact, what I had in mind on Friday, in using the words I did, was his sympathetic attitude towards the activities of a certain body dealing with drink. But I will not go into that matter, since I only desire to assure the House and the hon. Member that I entirely withdraw the words to which the hon. Member took exception.

Mr. HAYDAY: I am much obliged.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).

STANDING COMMITTEE B.

Mr. WILLIAM NICHOLSON reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee B (added in respect of the Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restriction Continuation) Bill): Mr. Remer and had appointed in substitution: Sir Henry Cowan.

Report to lie upon the Table.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.

[5th ALLOTTED DAY.]

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. JAMES HOPE in the Chair.]

CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1925–26.

CLASS II.

BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, SCOTLAND.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £265,775, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1926. for the Salaries and Expenses of the Board of Agriculture for Scotland, including Grants for Agricultural Education and Training, Loans to Co-operative Societies, and certain Grants-in-Aid."—[NOTE: £120,000 has been voted on account.]

4.0 P.M.

The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Sir John Gilmour): I think it will be for the convenience of the Committee that I should make a few short remarks upon this Vote. I desire to say here, as the responsible Minister for the Board of Agriculture for Scotland, what I have often said as a private Member, that I desire it to be clearly understood that the policy which I would outline for the Board of Agriculture for Scotland is one which should primarily concern itself with the large main interests of agriculture in my country. What I mean by that is that it should primarily turn its attention to the policy of agricultural education, and agricultural research, because I am completely convinced, from such knowledge as I have of agriculture, that it is through that channel more than any other that agriculture, in what ever form, whether it be the larger holdings, the moderate holdings, or the small holdings, are ultimately going to derive benefit. I wish at this stage to say that in anything I may outline as to what I think should be our policy I must of course take into account, and I trust the Committee will take into account, the fact that there is sitting to-day in Scotland a body representative of all the agricultural interests, and to that body
the Government have referred with very wide terms of reference many of the problems we shall speak of to-day. I am indeed glad to think that the Government, and the Board of Agriculture for Scotland, are going to have at their disposal the considered opinions of representatives of the farmers, both tenant farmers and occupying owners, of workers on the land, and representatives of small holdings as well as the larger agricultural owners.
The terms of reference to that Conference are very wide. I wish to emphasise what I have said as to the importance of agricultural education. The Committee will see, under Subhead L of the Board's Estimates, that there is a total provision of £123,500, and I hope it will be regarded by the Committee as a reasonable provision for this important service. Undoubtedly, much remains to be done to bring Scotland up to the level of other countries in the provision of facilities for research, but I would point out that considerable progress has been made during recent years. Since the War three research stations have been established, and two others have been very largely developed. No part of the work of the Board of Agriculture is more profitable in the long run than that which is devoted to organising, encouraging, and subsidising research. I would like to say that i believe that this is largely recognised in Scotland, because it is receiving a great and increasing measure of support from the agricultural community. Apart from this proposed provision of £123,000 which appears in the Estimates, it will be remembered that £150,000 fell to Scotland under the Corn Production (Repeal) Act to be expended by the Board in the succeeding five years. In addition to that, a sum of £500,000 was agreed to be paid over to the Development Commissioners for agricultural education and research in Great Britain, and, while we have no direct guarantee as to the amount that may be spent in Scotland, I anticipate that we should receive at least £100,000 of that money.
Much has been done in recent years by the Government to support research, but a great deal also has been subscribed by the general public. The Bowett Research Institute, in Aberdeen, which concerns itself mainly with animal nutrition—to
the examination of food for animals—has benefited to the extent of £21,500 by local and other donations, over £25,000 has been given for the erection of the buildings of the Royal (Dick) Veterinary College, and the Plant Breeding Station was started with a sum of over £22,000, chiefly contributed in very small sums by farmers, seedsmen, and others in Scotland. The Animal Diseases Research Association originated by the same method of local subscription, and we hope that the proposed Dairy Research Institute will excite the same local support. The Rowett Institute has already achieved notable results, and to enable these laboratory results to be tested on a commercial scale an experimental farm will be provided. Land has already been purchased, and the buildings will be erected this year. A maintenance grant of some £10,000 and a capital provision of £17,000 towards the experimental farm are proposed for expenditure in the current year. The Scottish Society for Research in Plant Breeding receives an annual grant amounting in this year to £1,541, and £600 for special works. Lord Constable's Committee, which reported upon agricultural education and research, recommended increased support and assistance from Government funds, and, in view of the annual value of the Scottish crops, this amount of £1,541 cannot be said to err on the side of generosity. I would only point out that if a new variety of oats or one or two new varieties of potatoes were produced by this station of research and, when tested, were able to stand against the existing varieties or show any improvement upon them, the return both to the farmer and to the general community would be enormous.
Then there is the great loss to the stock owners of Scotland from diseases of many kinds. It is estimated that a loss of at least £1,000,000 a year is due to two sheep diseases only. Acclimatisation values are a problem, due to the prevalence of these sheep diseases, and it is a problem which hangs like a millstone round the necks not only of the landlords but also of the tenants, and I might point out that it affects very materially the course of land settlement. In the Border districts there are two sheep diseases, lamb dysentery and "scrapie," which continue to spread and inflict enormous losses on our flocks. These are
being investigated, and, if anything can come out of these investigations, it will be of material advantage. The Research Association was set up to deal with these plagues. Buildings are now in course of erection, and at the present moment the work is being carried out in temporary premises. The Board of Agriculture for Scotland has contributed £18,000 towards the cost of these buildings, and we are proposing a maintenance grant this year of £3,000. Then we have in Aberdeen and Edinburgh the Nutrition and Animal Breeding Research Stations, and these are closely linked up with the universities. I do not wish to trouble the Committee by going too deeply into all these questions, but I do desire to emphasise the importance of this research work both to this Committee and to the country as a whole.
A question which materially affects our Highland Districts is the provision of winter keep for stock. If that problem could be in any measure solved, it would materially add to the productive capacity of this class of holding. I therefore call the attention of the Committee to the fact that we are making experiments with regard to silos, and I hope that the promising results which have already come from some of these experiments may be more widely extended. I wish particularly to draw attention to the assistance which has been provided by the Rockefeller International Education Board, and it is hoped that an American soil surveyor will spend six months in Scotland working with our soil experts of the agricultural colleges. America has made enormous progress in this direction of soil analysis. There are large belts of the country in America which have been tested and where manures and fertilisers can be specifically prescribed for certain conditions of soil. These go out to the farmer with the brand of the Department, and he has complete confidence in using his money in buying these things, because he feels that he is going to get material results from them.
May I turn for one moment to another branch, namely, that of the Agricultural Organisation Society, for purchase and sale throughout Scotland. It is now. I think, 20 years since the Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society first came into being. I was one of those who was
at the inaugural meeting. During all this time it has been an uphill task trying to preach the policy to the farming community, who, if I may say so, are very conservative in their methods. But I hope and trust that we have now reached the stage in which it is generally recognised by all classes of farmers that there is great advantage to be derived from agricultural organisation, and I would plead with Members of this House to interest themselves directly and personally in this movement. It has been brought very closely into touch with the members of the Farmers' Union and the Chambers of Agriculture, and there are representatives on this body of the agricultural colleges. One would welcome, however, the infusion into the managing committees of this great movement of any fresh help that might come from any quarter. I trust that we may be able to do something more in the development of this question.
I would point out the practical importance of this matter. There is the dead meat trade between Aberdeen and other parts of Scotland and London and the English markets; there is the exportation of seed oats and potatoes to England: and there is the sale of crofters' wool. These are matters which are not confined to any part of the country. They are all of them things which may appear small in themselves, but in bulk they are going to help and assist agriculture in Scotland. There is the extension of co-operative dairying in the eastern counties of Scotland. A great deal has been done in the west on these lines, but a great deal more might be done. Then you come to the formation of "single purpose" co-operative purchase societies, i.e., societies dealing in one commodity alone. I hope, as the result of conferences which have very recently taken place, we may be able to make further advance in this matter of education. At any rate, we are setting aside this year rather more towards the educational purposes of the Agricultural Organisation Society, and I trust that in future years even that may be extended.
Perhaps I might say one word at this stage on the question of the Glasgow Veterinary College. The Committee will remember that this matter has been raised here, and that I have had meetings with
the representatives of that body. The decision to centralise the Government grants on one college in Scotland was taken some time ago, and I would only point out that, in my judgment, the number of veterinary students that can be found in Scotland, though one might hope it will increase as time goes on, is limited. The number that can be, absorbed, either in Scotland or in the Dominions and elsewhere, is a limited number, and the real truth is, in my judgment—I am merely expressing my view—the real truth is that, if we are to make material advances in veterinary science and education, and improve the standard of work in this direction, then, undoubtedly, we must have these men taught under the most advanced conditions that are possible. If that is going to be done, particularly in the straitened monetary conditions in which we are at present existing, it is undoubtedly a wise policy to centralise it in one place.
I have noticed, in the course of the various meetings that have taken place with regard to the Glasgow Veterinary College, that the policy which has been adopted of withdrawing the grant of £600 has been the matter which has mainly figured, but the view was that, if this Glasgow College could have, or did have, the same amount of support towards improving the building and making it an up-to-date institution as the Dick Veterinary College has received on its part, then the conditions might have to be considered on a somewhat different footing. But I would emphasise that, the Dick Veterinary College having been made, as it is, as efficient and up to date as it is possible for any great institution to be, in the case of the Glasgow College, while I do not dispute the energy of some of those who have been working there for a long time, it is quite clear that, if the policy of the Government had been to continue the grant of £600, undoubtedly the next step would have been that we should have had to give, if it were going to be made efficient, large grants for improving the building and, above all, for the whole-time teachers who are necessary to any institution of that kind. It is upon these grounds that I have adhered to the decision taken by a previous Secretary for Scotland, and I believe, myself, that at the end of the day it will
be found to be the policy which will give the best result for the veterinary profession in Scotland.
I do not wish to detain the Committee longer, but I would wish, in closing, to say something about the question of land settlement. I have already remarked that, if land settlement and small holdings are to be in measure successful, they must have behind them a large and efficient system of agriculture, and that they will materially benefit from the results of scientific research. During the past year, 269 applicants were given entry to new holdings, and 126 to enlargements of existing holdings. In addition, the Board placed 41 applicants in holdings which had been constituted by them since 1912, and which had since fallen vacant. Of the total of 436 applicants thus dealt with, 254 were ex-service men. This question is one in regard to which I will not commit myself to any definite policy at this particular moment, but I wish to tell the Committee the kind of policy that I have in mind. I have only occupied my present position for a short time, and I would desire, during the period which lies before me in the next few months, to familiarise myself with the actual conditions of some of the existing settlements both in the Highland areas and in the Lowlands; but, as I visualise this question, we are coming towards the end, within a comparatively short period, of the main grant which was given for the settlement of men on holdings, and, undoubtedly, whatever the future policy may be, that will have to be reconsidered within a comparatively short time.
If one looks at the map of Scotland, one sees that, so far as the outer islands are concerned—Orkney, Shetland and all the others round our coasts—the settlements already made there are practically so complete that there is no possibility of great expansion in the islands. That being the ease, it is quite clear that, if anything is going to be done materially to assist and help the people under those conditions, then, since you cannot provide more land than actually exists, you are undoubtedly faced with the necessity of propounding some alternative policy. My own view, very frankly, is that emigration under suitable conditions, either to the Dominions or to other portions of our own country, is the only practical solu-
tion. Indeed, my view is that many of these holdings are too small to be economically sound for supporting the people under the existing conditions, and that, therefore, our policy should be directed more and more, not to creating an undue number of small holdings of this uneconomic size, but, where we see the opportunity, to enlarging them as others fall in.
I want to make it clear to the, Committee, however, that we have now reached a stage, in my judgment, in this settlement policy which will make it necessary for us to say to these applicants for small holdings that we cannot always give them a small holding in the immediate vicinity of where they are at present living, and that, indeed, it would be to their advantage and to the advantage of the State if they would accept other holdings which we may be able to offer, and may possibly offer, to them from time to time in other areas. Let me give one instance in explanation of what I mean. You have around Inverness, the city of the North which is well known to everybody, a considerable number of applicants for holdings, but the difficulty of obtaining suitable holdings in the vicinity of Inverness is very great, and has faced the Board on more than one occasion. On the other hand, if one looks at the map, one sees that in the surrounding counties there are many places within reasonable distance of that centre which have not yet been settled, and I would say that the practical and honest policy for the Board to pursue would be to obtain land, by purchase or otherwise, in these districts, and say to these smallholders: "Here are your opportunities; here is suitable land, and you are provided, under the terms of the engagement which we have made, with a house. While it may not be in the immediate vicinity of where you have lived, it is nevertheless giving you that opportunity which the State is prepared to give." That is what I want the Committee to understand should be, in my judgment, our policy in dealing with this question.
On these matters I am very willing to co-operate with, and to have the assistance and advice of, not only the agricultural conference which has been set up, but of Members from all districts of Scotland, to whatever party they may
belong. Many of these problems are peculiar to our country, but I do not despair of finding a solution to some of them. We must, however, really face the facts, and some of these questions of which I have spoken no doubt raise, and will raise, differences of opinion in the minds of hon. Members. It is for that reason that I have spoken as frankly as I have done to-day on this matter, in order that I may elicit from them their opinions upon this question. Let the keynote of the administration of the Board be, first, agricultural education and research, the care of agriculture as a whole in the increasing production of food for the people: and, in addition, as a subsidiary matter, the propagation and settlement of small holdings and, it may be, of allotments, both of which, if they prove to make good, will be steppingstones for men of energy and enterprise in Scotland.

Mr. WILLIAM ADAMSON: The Committee has listened to a very interesting statement from my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Scotland, who mentioned a number of subjects in which, I am certain, each one of us is very much interested, and will agree with him in the manner of dealing with them which he outlined. For example, when he was speaking of the question of agricultural education and research, whether from the point of view of small holdings or large, I am certain that all of us are at one with him as to the value of a policy that would provide the best in education and the best in research for those who are cultivating the land. The right hon. Gentleman also informed us that there is a body sitting in Scotland now to consider agricultural problems, and to advise the Government. There, again. I am sure that each of us wishes that that body may be able to do good work and to present us with a valuable Report at the conclusion of its labours.
The right hon. Gentleman went over a very large number of questions, such as the Rowett Institution, stock breeding and research, highland winter stock feeding, the provision of silos, and agricultural education, and eventually he came to the question of the Glasgow Veterinary College, which is a subject that has been discussed a few times in the House. Before I pass on to other things,
I would like to suggest to my right hon. Friend that, in view of the fact that another £100,000 is likely to be passed on to his Department, I think he would be well advised again to reconsider the question of giving a grant to the Glasgow Veterinary College. That institution has done good work up to the present, and is capable of doing good work in the future, and I want to say quite frankly that, when I held for a short time the post which my right hon. Friend now holds, if I had had the money available, he may take it from me that Glasgow would have had a grant just as other institutions of a like kind have had.
My right hon. Friend went on to speak of land settlement, and he gave the Committee very frankly his ideas concerning it. I hope that when he invites us to co-operate with him he may take some of the suggestions that some of us will make to him regarding the question of land settlement, because I think that, if we are to develop agriculture in Scotland to the fullest extent possible, we will require to go much further than the Secretary for Scotland has indicated in his speech to-day. There is no subject, to my mind, which requires more careful consideration from everyone than the one that is now under discussion. The question of the production of the greatest amount of food possible from the land at our disposal is as important for the man in the city as it is for the person who lives in the country. For many years past we have developed industrially rather than agriculturally, both in Scotland and in other parts of Great Britain. As one of our writers has put it, we have been growing our wheat in the mine, and our corn in the factory. I fear we have reached the time when we shall require to reconsider the position, because I do not think we can hope to remain longer the Workshop of the World. We shall have to be prepared to take a smaller part of the world's trade. For the past three years, so small has been our part of the world's trade that we have had over a million persons idle and a considerable number on part-time employment. If we are to maintain anything like our present population we shall require to find work for them in other directions, and one of the directions
which appears to me to be open is the settlement of a very much bigger proportion of our people on the land.
There is a considerable section of our people who are now very anxious to enter into agriculture and are prepared to go back to the land. There is not only a very long waiting list for smallholders, but there is also a large number of people who are anxious to get larger and more economic holdings. This is borne out by the fact that where a farm in any part of Scotland is either for lease or for sale, there is a very large number of applicants, and in consequence of the big demand the rent and the price of land is going up. Under these circumstances it is the duty of the Government and of this House to take whatever steps are necessary to remove the difficulties that stand in the way of a much larger number of our people getting land. I am aware that there are difficulties which will require to be removed. Some will possibly require legislation in order to bring pressure on certain landowners to lease or to sell the land they hold so that it can be put to a better use than it is being put to to-day. It may be that certain persons who either lease or own more land than they are able to put to a proper use will require to have pressure put upon them as well, and it may also be that pressure may require to be put on the Treasury—I know the difficulties which will confront the right hon. Gentleman when he attempts to do that—to find the money necessary to bring more land into cultivation which cannot be profitably used now and to give the facilities for those who desire to cultivate the land.
In one of the areas that the right hon. Gentleman dealt with, a Highland area, there are millions of acres under deer forests. In Ross, Sutherland and Inverness there are considerable stretches of land under deer forests which were formerly put to, what is to my mind, a more economic use than it is being put to-day. The crofters, who used to occupy it, have either been driven to the islands the right hon. Gentleman was telling us of, where no more land can be got, or they were forced to emigrate. To such an extent is that the case, that if I quote the figures of population it will be at once seen that we require to
reverse the policy, which was begun years ago, of putting the crofters off that land in the centre of the counties I have named and pushing them to the sea board and the islands. If I take Argyll, for example, out of a population of something like 80,000, 14,000 are on the islands, where there is very little land, and they are compelled in many instances to have very small, uneconomic holdings, which impose an enormous struggle upon those who are attempting to cultivate them. If I take Inverness, where some farms are yet available, out of a population of about 80,000 there are 28,000 who are living in the islands and under conditions that impose very great hardships indeed. If I take Ross and Cromarty, out of a population of something like 70,000 there are also 28,000 who are living in the islands, showing that these crofters have been pushed off the mainland in order to make room for deer, in order that the deer might take the place of men and that sport might be provided for people who could pay a larger rental than the former occupants of these holdings could do.
In addition to that, there are all over Scotland, in the Lowlands as well as the Highlands, blocks of land which are not being put to any economic use. For example, there are the parts which still surround many of the mansions, where valuable land is not being used economically. There are home farms in the Highlands attached to a number of mansions which ace kept more as a hobby than as an economic proposition, and there are blocks of land which formerly were cultivated where the farm buildings have been allowed to become derelict and a few sheep and cattle are grazed upon them, possibly only providing a fourth of the foodstuffs they are capable of producing, and certainly less than a fourth of the, labour which could be provided if they were dealt with in a businesslike way. Take another of the ways in which I think the land available can be largely increased. Both in Germany and in Denmark they have been what is called skinning the moorlands and bog-lands with very great success, and I suggest that these large tracts of moorland and bogland should be carefully examined and the possibilities discovered with a view to following the same line as has been followed so successfully in Germany and in Denmark.
If the right hon. Gentleman will examine the suggestions I am making, he will find that there will be less need for emigration than he evidently believes. I agree with him that in many cases some people will require to be taken from the parts of the country they live in. For example, in the Lewes I believe there is double the population that the land can comfortably maintain, and already an experiment in that direction has been made where some of the Barra men were brought down to Skye, and they are doing very well there. If the right hon. Gentleman will follow the suggestions I am making he will find that a very large area of additional land will be made available. One of the other things that stands in the way of our agricultural development in considerable portions of the country is the want of proper transport facilities. When I held the office the right hon. Gentleman holds, I examined parts of the country with a view to testing the possibilities of laying light railways. One of the committees that inquired into the matter suggested the laying down of two light railway branches north of Dingwall, one to go to Ullapool and the other to Lochinver. I have examined that part of the country, and I think there are great possibilities of development if the right hon. Gentleman will use his influence to get a light railway to be put down which would tap both places. Then there is the question of making our roads suitable for motor traffic. Motor traffic has developed to an enormous extent, and is capable of doing valuable service to agriculture. When he is making the round he was speaking of, he might give his attention to that question.
Then there is the question of piers. There are some piers which require a considerable amount of expenditure to put them in anything like a position to make them useful to the agricultural community. In certain cases piers have been closed: for example, that at Lochboisdale. When I was in office I offered to repair part of it and to be responsible for a temporary pier, but the offer was refused by the proprietor, I believe for the special purpose of forcing the Government to repair it and then hand it over to her. There are not many Secretaries for Scotland who would do anything of that kind, but I think there are
other steps which can and ought to be taken to have the pier repaired. It is not an impossible thing. There are many other matters one wound have liked to say a few words on, but I promised my colleagues I would occupy as short a period as possible so as to allow as many of them to get in as possible. I hope the same line will be taken by hon Members in all parts of the Committee. This is one of the few days on which we have the opportunity of discussing the affairs of Scotland, and I hope we shall restrain ourselves so as to allow others to get in. I hope some of the suggestions which have been put forward, and others I may put before the right hon. Gentleman later on, will receive serious condition. I do not think there is a more important question we can be engaged in discussing, there is certainly no more important question for the future development of Scotland, than the development to the fullest extent of her agricultural possibilities. There is room for doing it, and I hope that we shall get the help and co-operation of the Government and of the Secretary for Scotland in developing it to the fullest extent.

Mr. MACPHERSON: I am willing to submit myself to the self-denying ordinance suggested by the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken. The Committee is labouring under a very great disadvantage. We are discussing the most important of all subjects for Scotland, without the annual Report of the Board. In my judgment, the Government is not responsible for the fact that the Report is not published. I believe the exigencies of Parliament have made it possible for this Debate to take place two or three months sooner than it ordinarily takes place; but the fact remains that we are labouring, notwithstanding the lucid speech of the Secretary for Scotland, under a very great disadvantage because of the absence of the Report. May I remind my right hon. Friend that I think it was a year ago that the Report was curtailed. I believe the curtailment took place not at the hands of my right hon. Friend's predecessor, but at the hands of the Stationery Office. We Scottish Members strongly resent the one annual Report, to which we look forward, being curtailed by an alien body which has no knowledge of these important problems, which are
really the kernel of the agricultural life of Scotland. I ask my right hon. Friend to see to it that the Report is published in full this year, and that he will publish it as soon as possible.
From the few facts which are available in regard to the Board of Agriculture on the Estimates, one is struck, first of all, with the fact that we are spending nearly £400,000 upon this Board in Scotland. One is further struck by the enormous amount of that large stun which goes in expenses. I refer to wages, travelling allowances and salaries. The man in the street regards that proportion of expenditure as being far too great, and the results which have accrued as not justifying such an expenditure. It is a disquieting position, and there is no wonder that one finds in many a glen in the Highlands the ordinary, thinking man regarding the Board, having considered the results of the Board's activities, as being bureaucratic, extravagant and, in many ways, unintelligent. My right hon. Friend's statement to-day will give a great many men cause to think in Scotland to-morrow. I must say that it was courageous. It was a preliminary statement of great frankness. He has attempted to outline, in a nutshell, the policy of his Department.
It is rather difficult, on the spur of the moment, to grasp what the result of that preliminary statement may ultimately be, but it looks to me as if the main problem for which the Board of Agriculture was instituted was being shelved. I am speaking for my colleagues in the North of Scotland, and I think I am expressing the views of Members in all parts of the House, whether they are Scottish Members or not, when I say that the problem of settlement on the land of a fine Highland stock is a problem which cannot be shelved by the three methods which my right hon. Friend adumbrated. The value to the country of that stock is enormous. Many men, whatever constituency they represent, would go far to press upon any Government the desirability of hastening land settlement and leaving other things to take their chance. They would have the satisfaction of knowing that the land of Scotland was being tenanted by a strong, capable and virile race.
What does my right hon. Friend suggest? In answer to questions to-day he has made it perfectly plain that there
has been a decrease in the agricultural population since the last Census. I believe the decrease has amounted to 15,000. That is an enormous number of men to take from an already depopulated country. My right hon. Friend has very well said that he has nothing to do with that; but my grievance against him is that, instead of attempting to stop that great depopulation, the new scheme which he has just adumbrated is going to increase it. There were three points underlying his solution of land settlement. He said, first of all, that you cannot have a proper land settlement unless and until you have an efficient agriculture behind it. That is true; but in his statement he has only adumbrated a policy to make the agriculture of Scotland efficient. It will take a long time before his wishes are fulfilled. It may take 20 years, and you are going to have this great drift of the population from Scotland continuing during that time.
His second point was—and there is a good deal to be said for it—that we must certainly have migration. By that, I understand the transference of holders or prospective holders from one part of the Highlands or any other part of Scotland to another. Everybody knows that the Highlander has a tremendous sentimental attachment to the particular corner of the Highlands where he was born. He likes his little village, he likes his old associates and he likes his native, heath. These are considerations which I have no doubt my right hon. Friend has weighed, and they are very important considerations when you are dealing with the Highland population. A policy of migration should not take place until my right hon. Friend and his colleagues are satisfied that sentiment can no longer stand in the way, that sentiment must be brushed aside, and that in the interests of the men themselves and in the interests of the nation as a whole it is not only desirable but necessary that this migration should take place.
My right hon. Friend referred to some imaginary map which he had in his mind; a map depicting the various colonies of smallholders which had been established in various parts of Scotland. May I give him a word of warning? I know a good deal about the one important experiment in emigration which
has taken place. I refer to the migration to Talisker. My right hon. Friend must be aware of that. Migration has not been a success, is not a success, and is not likely to be a success. We had a deputation which appeared before my right hon. Friend the other day, at which Sir Reginald Macleod, who is well known to my right hon. Friend and to all of us as a student of Scottish affairs with first-class knowledge, made it plain that this migration policy, particularly at Talisker, was a gigantic and colossal failure.
Before my right hon. Friend tampers with the sentiment of the people of the Highlands he ought to see that some substitute is given for the sentiment, and that they are not to be dragged from one barren part of the Highlands to another equally barren part, which is strange to them; but that if migration takes place these men should be given a chance of a livelihood upon good soil, where they will be able to make both ends meet, where they can have, not a stupid holding, but an economic holding, and where they will be able, despite the temptations of the outside world, to continue a life of peacefulness, usefulness, happiness, and contentment in their own countryside.
The third point underlying the policy was that my right hon. Friend said that we have undoubtedly to face the question of emigration. I am as proud of the Empire as anybody, and I am anxious to see it developed in every one of its corners, but equally I am not unmindful of the fact that the Highlands of Scotland are an essential and great part of the Empire. We heard to-day that £80,000 had been granted to Kenya for the erection of a school for European children, and we heard that it was essential and urgent. I agree that it may be so, but I do think the time has come when the House of Comons ought, first of all, to look at its own doors, and we Members for Scotland ought to insist upon it. We who regard the Empire as a whole ought to insist that it is not only essential but urgent that we should colonise at home first, that we should spend the hard-earned money of the taxpayer upon benefiting our own people at home, trying to give them a comfortable livelihood there and thereby supporting and strengthening the heart of the Empire. I am willing
that money shall be spent for purposes of that kind in Kenya, but I beg my right hon. Friend, and he would have the support of the whole of the Scottish Members behind him, that he should try to get such sums as these for the claimant needs of the Highlands and other parts of Scotland.
5.0 P.M.
What are the facts? The £80,000 is ac absolute grant to Kenya, a colony which was not known as a colony of Britain two or three years ago. Last year, when the Highlands of Scotland were in distress and destitute, we got a grant of £100,000 from the Labour Government for seeds and potatoes. What do we find? The Government only spent £55,000 of that sum, and they are holding back, indeed they have taken back the remainder of the sum into the coffers of the Treasury. I have no doubt that the remaining £45,000 is probably part of the £80,000 granted to the Europeans in Kenya. That seems to me to be a policy that is absolutely indefensible. It was the same with the so-called grant or loan of £100,000 for Scottish fishermen. We all know the struggle and the hardship of life which these seamen have to endure in the North of Scotland. What do we find? The conditions which were laid clown for the expenditure of that loan were so abnormal that only about 14 fishermen thought it worth while to apply for any such loan, and we find now that that money, which, on the Government's own showing was available, is no longer available for the purposes of the Highlands but if Kenya Colony or Timbuctoo asked the Government for any such sum for the benefit of their people, they would get it. It is the duty of the Secretary for Scotland to see that, if there is any money going, the first consideration of this House should be for the heart of the Empire. If the heart of the Empire is sound it is certain that the limbs will also be sound. I was rather afraid to introduce the subject of transport, but I notice that my right hon. Friend, with that geniality of his, discussed the subject at great length. I am not sure that it is within the scope of this Vote, but I merely mention it. I am sorry that it is not, because all Scottish Members of Parliament are united upon the need of transport.

The CHAIRMAN: If the right hon. Gentleman can persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give a, grant for loans in the agricultural districts I do not propose to rule it out of order.

Mr. MACPHERSON: I was rather afraid that the general question of transport in the Western Highlands and Islands was outside this Vote, and I am not going to interfere in any way with your discretion. I do not propose to deal with the broad question of transport at this moment, because we are going to wait upon my right hon. Friend upon this subject afterwards, but there is a question of transport not upon so large a scale which is within this Vote. We are asking the Government, as we have asked each successive Government, to hasten the settlement of smallholders upon the land, but there is no good settling people on the land unless you give them some sort of transport facilities, and I have been writing to the Secretary and asking questions, and making myself generally a nuisance, trying to get from the Board of Agriculture little roads, where you have children going to school, from the holdings to the school. We are asking for small grants for this purpose, but we are told that there is no money. I would like my right hon. Friend, who is new to his high office, to look into this matter. You are giving £80,000 to European children in Kenya, and cannot you give 500 for district roads to the people of the Highlands who are anxious to send their children to school in places where they have to pass bridgeless torrents in the middle of winter, and very often have no chance of changing their wet clothes You cannot expect a virile population to grow up in the Highlands of Scotland in conditions like those. It is essential to give at least equal consideration to Scotland so that the comfort and education of the children are looked after.
I would like to refer to two or three points on which I think the Department of Agriculture might prove itself more useful. I was delighted that so much money was being spent on research. I think that that is a splendid thing. I understand that double the amount is being spent this year as compared with last year. That is well worth doing, and any support which we can give the Government in developing research we will willingly give, but while I am
dealing with research may I draw attention once more to the claims of the staff in the three Colleges of Agriculture in Scotland. I have no doubt that the claim has been brought to the attention of my right hon. Friend. I mention it merely because I know that all the Scottish Members have been written to about it, and I think that in fairness it ought to be settled at once, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will do so. My right hon. Friend paid no attention—that was probably through an oversight—to the question of afforestation—

The CHAIRMAN: I imagine that that will come under another Vote for the Forestry Commission.

Mr. MACPHERSON: I think that I am in order here, because there is a great deal of co-operation between the Forestry Commissioners and the Board of Agriculture, and I am pressing the point that that co-operation should continue. My hon. Friend the Member for Dundee (Mr. Johnston) in a very able speech on the Forestry Commission the other night pointed out the desirability of having afforestation, particularly in Scotland, as a subsidiary occupation. No man expects a smallholder, particularly now when small holdings are so small in extent, to make a fortune. There are certain times of the year when he is idle, and our contention is that there should be such co-operation between the Board of Agriculture and the Forestry Commissioners that they should work together to have settlements made, so that there should be small holdings where the man could work to keep his family a certain portion of the year, and could have the assurance that there was external work, ancillary work, in the neighbouring forests for him during the months when he would otherwise be idle. That is necessary if you are to have complete contentment and economic holdings in the North of Scotland.
I would now ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider the question of one or two old industries. The first is the kelp industry. I understand that by the burning of seaweed you are able to produce a mixture of carbonates and iodine and various other chemical substances. It may be said against me as a Free Trader that because we allowed
certain chemical substances to come into this country the kelp industry was destroyed. In 1865 the island of Benbecula produced no less than 500 tons of kelp at £10 a ton, and the neighbouring island of South Uist produced 650 tons at £10 per ton. I am told by friends of mine who have made researches into the history of this matter that £20 a ton was given for kelp during the Napoleonic Wars. If you go to the West Coast of Scotland to-day you will not find any development of that kind. The people who made a handsome livelihood out of it are either gone or pay no further attention to the industry, but I think that if the industry could be revived it would be a splendid addition to the work of the fishermen and the crofters on the islands off the West Coast.
We find that, instead of helping the local people to develop the seaweed industry, the great Department of the Board of Trade are interfering with the farmers and smallholders on the west coast of Scotland, and on the islands when they touch the seaweed which their fathers from time immemorial have used for the purpose of improving the land. In reference to the questions of lime kilns I would make a plea for the revival of the lime kiln industry. My hon. and gallant, Friend the Member for Caithness (Sir A. Sinclair) has taken a great interest in this matter and has been pressing my right hon. Friend for the opening of the lime kilns. On the west coast of Scotland in the old days, during the proper season, the countryside, particularly the arable country side, was white with the rime, cheap lime easily procurable from the limestone quarries, which had been dumped down, and the fertilisation of the land was thereby considerably improved. In Denmark—and we can learn a great deal from the small holdings in that country—the Government actually allow the lime to be carried free upon the railways in order to benefit the land. It is worth while for the Board of Agriculture to interest itself in a question of this kind.
I must say to its credit that it has interested itself to a great extent in another matter connected with agriculture. I refer to ensilage. I have been made to take an interest in it through seeing the effects of silos. The
silo is as old as the time of the Pharaohs. It is well known that during the Hundred Years War the Germans used the silo for their own food, and in Canada and America to-day there are no fewer than a million silos at work. As my right hon. Friend has pointed out, it has abolished the need of cultivating winter crops, and the silo at work will procure for the farmer a supply which is always fresh during the winter months when the snow is on the ground. If the ensilage were increased in the Highlands of Scotland, I see it stated on the best authority, we could double the number of cattle on the land and double the number of sheep. I hope that my right hon. Friend during his tenure of office, with his own experience as a landowner and farmer, will take a personal interest in this particular subject and see to it not only that instruction is given, as is being done now to a small extent, by the Board of Agriculture, but that the principles shall be expounded on every available occasion, so that we may thereby hasten the time when we shall have, as he said, efficient agriculture in Scotland.
I will end on the same lines as those on which my right hon. Friend ended. He said that he was very anxious to take into consultation Members from all sides of the House. I think that that was very wise, but I think that he ought to go a step further. The Committee which is at present sitting in Scotland will, I hope, have a very good effect in one way. It will bring all those engaged on the soil closely together, so as to understand each other. That is a very desirable thing, but I think that, now that we have had no expert Commission in Scotland since 1892 to deal with all those points, the time has come, and this is giving effect to the spirit of my right hon. Friend's own speech, when we should have a reconsideration of the various problems in Scotland referring to transport and agriculture, and that we should have a Departmental Committee, if you like, or a Commission of some sort, appointed to give my right hon. Friend, in addition to the advice which he has been good enough to accept from us, some useful information to enable him to carry out the programme which he has advocated to-day. I hope sincerely that my right hon. Friend will consider this, and will
take into consideration the various points which I have thought it my duty to bring to the notice of the Committee this afternoon.

Mr. SKELTON: Both the right lion Members who have spoken since my right hon. Friend spoke have made it clear that in their view the most important announcement of my right hon. Friend was in reference to the policy proposed to be adopted with regard to land settlement. I wish, if I may, to thank my right hon. Friend for opening that topic so early, because it is well known that the present fund by which the land settlement policy is at present supported will come to an end, I understand, in the next 18 months, and then the question will have to be reviewed from its very fundamentals. What I want to address myself to is another matter. I want to ask my right hon. Friend to take the very greatest care that full use is made of the experience which we have already had of land settlement. I feel that still the question of land settlement in Scotland, in the Highlands and the Lowlands, is discussed both by its friends and enemies too much in the air. We have, in fact, a very large amount of evidence as to how land settlement has progressed. I believe, from the inquiries that I have been able to make in my own constituency, that the evidence is very strongly in favour of the view that both socially-and economically where you have good soil, a suitable personnel and suitable markets, land settlement has entirely justified itself. That is my own view. But my view is not of very great importance. What is of importance is that, before a new step has to be taken with regard to future policy, there should be the very closest inquiry as to the results of the land settlement that has already taken place.
The right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken referred to a Committee or Commission. I cannot help thinking that the time is fully ripe for an inquiry by impartial and expert people into the results of land settlement. I do not propose to weary the Committee with figures. Inquiry seems to me necessarily to fall into three main sections. First of all, there is the question whether you increase your rural population. I think that that is proved. May I give the Committee one
set of figures for which I can vouch. Eight hundred acres in Eastern Perthshire, a few miles out of Dundee, a few years ago included four farms, one of them a led farm. The result in population was three farmers, 17 agricultural workers and four women and boys employed. From 1919 onwards a land settlement scheme was introduced. The population result was, instead of 17 men, a population of 53 men, and instead of four farms and one led farm, there were 45 holdings. Instead of a small seasonal population brought in with the harvest there was a large seasonable population brought in far the harvest, both ordinary arable and fruit harvests. In every way there was a permanent increased population on the area of 800 acres.
I say nothing of the Highland holdings. That is a separate problem, and I have always been very chary of entering into it. But I am satisfied that, so far as the Lowlands are concerned, if you will only select the right men and the right soil, you can increase your rural population by a very great number. But that is not the end of the question. The next question is, when you have got the people there do you get as good or better agricultural results from their presence? I believe that you can get increased productivity. From the examples I know in my own constituency, I have no doubt as to that. But it is not the knowledge of a single Member of Parliament that is wanted. What is wanted is a close and expert inquiry into the amount of increased productivity that closer land settlement gives you. I hope I am sufficient of an economic purist to believe that there is no use going on with a policy unless it is economically sound. Therefore, I urge my right hon. Friend, before the time for new decisions has arisen, to have this inquiry into the economic as well as the population effect of land settlement. There is only one other question which suggests itself to me as one which such an inquiry would have to deal with. Assuming that your questions as to increased population and increased productivity are satisfactorily answered, there remains one question which must be answered: How can continued land settlement be carried out in the most economical way? How can we most avoid extravagance that is unnecessary and hurtful?
I do not believe that enough attention has been paid in this country to alternative methods of land settlement. I have always held the view, and constantly expressed it, that the Board of Agriculture has been very extravagant in its methods of land settlement. I am not prepared to give expert advice as to how these expenses should be reduced, but I am satisfied that there are certain lines of advance which are possible. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) said the other day in the Unemployment Debate that a Government drawn from the Conservative side of the House bad the great advantage that it could use persuasion with certain classes that perhaps other Governments might not have the same persuasive influence with. I am sure that there is a lot to be said for that, and that a Conservative Government can make appeals to the landlords of Scotland with great force. I recall to my right hon. Friend's remembrance the fact that when Lord Haldane was introducing his Territorial Force scheme he had no hesitation in appealing to the landowners of England and Scotland to assist him. I merely throw that out as a suggestion, but I am satisfied that you can enormously decrease the expense of setting up land settlement if you make full use (1) of local knowledge, (2) of local labour, and (3) of the general knowledge of local conditions. I believe that the charges of extravagance in the matter of land settlement have largely arisen from the fact that the Board of Agriculture has tried to do far too much itself with its own employés and its own charges, and has left far too little to be done by the local enterprise of the new smallholder or any local assistance that can otherwise be given.
I do not wish to go into that, least of all in view of the self-denying ordinance under which I gladly put myself with the rest of hon. Members who wish to speak; but I do urge my right hon. Friend that, if we are to have either a change of policy or a continuation of the policy of land settlement, we want to have it for the future upon established facts. Only careful inquiry can give us those established facts, and if, as possibly will be the case, the established facts show that with regard to population and productivity land settlement is a success, and
that with regard to economy you can carry out the scheme much more economically than it has been carried out in the past—if inquiry shows that, we shall be able to go on with a policy of land settlement far more vigorously than has been done hitherto, and with enormously advantageous results, not merely to the rural districts of Scotland, but with regard to the industrial districts. There is no question—it seems to be generally agreed on all sides of the House—that we are in for a prolonged period of bad trade, as far as external trade goes. We have not begun to consider how the development of our rural districts can help our home trade. I believe that if we can find a sound basis for land settlement—I do not say it can be done in a year, for it will be a slow business in any case—

HON. MEMBERS: Why?

Mr. SKELTON: Because you have not your annual crop of suitable settlers. I do not want to go into that controversial matter. There is no greater waste possible in land settlement than putting the wrong type of man on the land. I believe that there is only a limited population, or what I have called a limited annual crop, of suitable people to put into small holdings.

Mr. WRIGHT: What about other countries?

Mr. SKELTON: I do not wish to take up every interruption. The reason why you get a larger suitable population in other countries is that the moment you have a considerable population of smallholders you have a rapidly-increasing number of people who are fit for new small holdings. Of all people most suited to put into a new holding is the boy who has been brought up on a small holding, and no boy brought up on a farm or in a ploughman's house is nearly as good for the purpose as the boy brought up on a small holding. That is why our annual crop of suitable smallholders is small. It is a slow process. I most strongly urge on my right hon. Friend that he is here dealing with a vast topic. In Scotland be is dealing with it, with certain modifications, under suitable conditions. When the time for taking a new step in policy arises, I urge him most strongly to give us a clear, impartial and inde-
pendent inquiry, so that Members on all sides of the House may know where the facts lead them with regard to land settlement, and if the facts, as I believe will be the case, are with us, I think I may say to my right hon. Friend that Members on all sides of the House will hack up any constructive and progressive policy for the development of further land settlement in Scotland.

Mr. T. JOHNSTON: I do not know how other Members feel about this Debate, but I for one feel that it is being conducted under most depressing and alarming conditions. We got first of all from the Secretary for Scotland a certain series of figures which, if I noted them aright, appear to me to be an indictment of the Scottish Board of Agriculture no less than an indictment of this House. Smallholders were increasing in Scotland at the rate of about 120 per annum, but between 1020 and 1924 there was a decrease of 110,000 acres of arable land. Last year there was an emigration of 40,174 from the shores of Scotland. The agricultural population—this answers a point made by the last speaker—has decreased at the rate of 15,000 in a decade. It is not a question of looking for an annual crop of suitable smallholders. It is a question of facing the fact that 15,000 of the agricultural population left the business of agriculture between 1911 and 1921. These figures appear to me to be disgraceful, particularly in view of the ominous industrial outlook. We see our chief staple industry, coal, being supplanted by oil. We see oil-driven ships—30 per cent. of the total Mercantile Marine now, whereas but a few years ago the proportion was only 3 per cent. Instead of doing everything in our power to repatriate our people on the soil and to produce a larger and ever larger proportion of our foodstuffs, we sit tamely by with these alarming and amazing figures of the wiping out of a people, the herding of a healthy population in the cities, or, as an hon. Friend said, directing them beyond the seas to pursuits of agriculture abroad when they can perfectly well be engaged in agriculture at home.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) referred to the subject of afforestation, which the Secretary for Scotland never mentioned. Without afforestation you cannot have economic small holdings.
Without proper co-ordination and without afforestation the whole scheme will become chaos, and I was amazed that the Secretary for Scotland did not think the work of afforestation worth mentioning. Within the time limit which we have imposed upon our speeches this evening, I desire to direct attention to one or two other points which have not been touched. In March last year I raised the question of co-operation amongst smallholders, and farmers of all classes. I drew attention to the facts about Denmark, and I made certain statements about the results of co-operation among the smallholders in the Orkney Islands. At a later date some of those statements were challenged, and in reply to a question by me, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Fife (Mr. W. Adamson), who was then Secretary for Scotland, promised that the Board of Agriculture would make a detailed inquiry in the Orkney Islands, and ascertain the actual results of the great development of co-operation there. Those results have not yet been obtained. I understand that the Board of Agriculture sent a representative there, and that he came back with the facts and figures, but he has fallen ill, and nothing further has been done. The Board did not think it worth while to make another investigation in order to get the facts and figures relating to what I believe to be a most important element in this question.
What are the known facts about agriculture in the Orkneys? On the islands off the North-East of Scotland the population is prosperous. On the islands off the North-West of Scotland, in the same latitude and both treeless, the population is in starvation. There is this difference between the two. On the islands off the North East the middleman has been abolished, and the people have instituted a system of co-operative marketing. They have, I am told, collared the market for eggs in Edinburgh and Leith from the Danes. They are doing well, and there are some parishes in which the population is beginning to increase. I was informed when I was there that there are Parishes in the Orkneys which are no longer compelled to raise money for the relief of the indigent. That may or may not be correct but I was definitely told that the parish of Deerness no longer requires to raise a poor-rate. For the latest year for which I can get figures the export of eggs from the Orkney
Islands represented £346,000 which far more than paid the total rents. One farmer whose books I examined kept 200 hens and by co-operation with his neighbours in the parish he had, in one year, received £176 for eggs.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Was it not 2,000 hens?

Mr. JOHNSTON: No, 200 hens and I can give the hon. Member the name of the man.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: I would like the hon. Member to give me the name of the hens.

Mr. JOHNSTON: I can quite understand the poverty of Argyllshire if its attitude towards modern progress is that adopted by its present representative. The fact remains that in Argyllshire starvation and poverty exist while in the Orkneys there is comparative plenty, and I submit that is due entirely to the fact that the smallholders in the Orkneys have wiped out the competitive marketing system of which the hon. Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) appears to think so highly. If the hon. Member desires further justification of my statement he can have it.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: I know a great deal about the raising of fowls, and I think the hon. Member's otherwise admirable statement was a little impinged upon by the very large figure he mentioned as having been raised from 200 hens. He may be right, but the figure seems incredible to an expert.

Mr. JOHNSTON: The hon. Member has yet a lot to learn. As a matter of fact, in two cases I can provide signed statements and there may be others. In the Island of Sandy several crofters are making these amounts from eggs. I examined the books of the Co-operative Society in the parish of Deerness, south of Kirkwall, and I found several farmers drawing over £150 per annum as the proceeds of about 200 hens. If the hon. Member for Argyllshire has any further doubt about the results of co-operation, I advise him to study the report of the Scottish Farmers' Commission which went over to Denmark, and which reported:
The Danish farmer pays his way; his life is a self-respecting one, and his home shows signs of refinement as well as of comfort
The agricultural correspondent of the "Times," writing on 14th May, 1923, said:
In skill and efficiency the whole system (the Danish system) is on a high level. The country owes its reputation and prosperity primarily to co-operation.
If the Secretary for Scotland wants to keep the people on the soil it is his business to send investigators to the Orkney Islands to find out what has been done. Let him get the reports on the subject for which we have repeatedly asked and let him see to it that as far as possible the co-operative system which has succeeded in the Orkneys is adapted to other parts of Scotland. I heard the reference to a new Commission or Committee of Inquiry which has been recently set up in Scotland in relation to agriculture, and I heard the right hon. Gentleman say that on the Commission there were half a dozen representatives of the farm servants. I would like to know how those half dozen were obtained. They were not obtained through the Farm Servants' Union, which knows nothing about them. I understand that four of them are grieves, and as a result of the way in which they and the Farmers' Union have been treated in regard to the composition of this Committee, the Farm Servants' Union will have nothing to do with its proceedings. I understand that in England a different procedure was adopted, and that the Minister of Agriculture asked the Workers' Union in England to nominate representatives. That course was not followed in Scotland, and we should hear the reasons why it was not followed. At this time of day a Committee of Inquiry into agriculture in Scotland which ignores the very efficient Farm Servants' Union in Scotland begins its operations under a heavy handicap.
I hope the Parliamentary Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health will tell us what he is going to do with the results of the Committees and Commissions already pigeon-holed in his Department. What is he going to do about the Report of the Game and Heather Burning Committee? I hear talk of further Committees of Inquiry, but what is the use of setting up Committees if the Reports are to be pigeon-holed and forgotten? What is going to be done in regard to the Report just published by Lord Constable's Committee? What is going to be
done about Recommendation No. 2 of that Committee? Are there to be labour representatives on the governing bodies of these colleges or not? What is to be done with Recommendation No. 17, about experiments in suitable localities for a residential farm school? What is to be done with Recommendation No. 26, as to the systematic recording and analysis of the data necessary for agricultural costing? What is to be done about Recommendation No. 28—all of which were, I think, unanimously agreed to and to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health appended his signature? What is the use of Committee after Committee and inquiry after inquiry finding out this and recommending that, when nothing whatever is done? The Report of the Game and Heather Burning Committee is as dead as a door nail. The deer forests are increasing and the rural population is decreasing, and to-day it is as true as in the time of Oliver Goldsmith that
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade—
A breath can make them, as a breath has made—
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroy'd, can never be supplied.
The policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland will, in my judgment, never supply them. We are going from bad to worse, and I regard the discussion this afternoon as a most depressing and alarming one.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: I also regard the discussion on the Scottish Board of Agriculture with very much the same feelings as the hon. Member who has just sat down. It is more or less a melancholy business. The Board of Agriculture has been in existence since 1913, and I understand it can be stated on reliable authority that the agriculture of Scotland, after all efforts has been as much improved by the effort of the Highland Society as by the Board of Agriculture. In 1922 I made an estimate of the cost of official salaries and travelling expenses and so forth, and
although this body was instituted for the purpose of settling men on the land, as far as I could see, if one took the number of men who were then settled up to date, and divided by that number the total of salaries and travelling expenses involved, there was enough to give every man settled on the land 30s, a week Lind let him find a small holding for himself Most of the money was more or less swallowed up in official expenses. This year, judging from the figures which have been given, the results as regards settlement do not seem to be much better. One cannot help feeling that we are beginning at the wrong end. Something like £500,000 has been spent this year, and there is very little to show for it, and there is no prospect of there being much snore to show for it in the future. It is not spoon-feeding that is wanted in the Highlands, or young men who have a theoretical knowledge of farming, motoring about the countryside. Those who lecture on agriculture seldom know a good beast when they see one or can "hain a crop." They have a book knowledge, but not a practical knowledge, and large numbers of them go about the country trying to instruct practical men. I am told that a substantial portion of the population of the Isle of Skye at certain periods of the year consist of members of the staff of the Board of Agriculture.
The real problem is transport, and, as the right hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) has said, it is a waste of time settling men on the land if they cannot get their produce to market, and you will never get it to market under the present system of transport. The transport system is conducted, not on the principle of the value of the services rendered, but of what have the people got, and the maximum amount is taken from them. Even though you give large grants, when you find in some cases a shilling charged for a rabbit taken a comparatively short distance, and a couple of shillings for a couple of rabbits, you have a transport situation that is absolutely impossible. If you do everything to make these smallholders as prosperous as possible, and let them have every possible advantage that the present Board of Agriculture, or a Board of Agriculture 10 times better than the present one, can give them, still the cost of transport would take the whole of
their profits, and they would be no better off at the end of the year than they were at the beginning, and unless you get better transport made available, all your efforts in the way of developing agriculture will be entirely in vain. Gentlemen on the other side may say I am attacking private enterprise. That is not so. I am against a transport monopoly, and wherever you get monopoly you get something bad. Monopoly requires to be checked in some fashion if monopolies are to be given. Transport includes piers and harbours and roads, and it is absolutely absurd that so many of the piers in Scotland are in private hands, so that there can be no steamer competition. The agriculturist cannot under present conditions get his produce to the market.
I was pleased to hear the Secretary for Scotland say that he is giving something to develop silos, which will solve the problem of winter feeding and wet seasons. I am informed by an expert agriculturist in the Highlands that silos would greatly increase the capacity of holdings, but with that there must be the development of the lime resources. I am told it is not necessary that lime should be burned, but only that it should be crushed. The whole of the grazings of Argyllshire would blossom with wild white clover, which is innate in the soil, if plenty of lime were applied thereto. I make a present of the suggestion to the Secretary for Scotland that he should start in on the Island of Lismore, which is a solid mass of very fine lime, known in the old days as the Garden of the Highlands, set up limeworks there, and barge the crushed lime to all parts round about; he would go a long way towards solving the difficulties of agriculture. It would also assist greatly by aiding in the destruction of the bracken which is devastating the Highlands. It seems impossible to get it dealt with by ordinary manual labour, as wages are so high. One man told me that he got a number of the unemployed, but he could not get them to stick it, and he went to Edinburgh University and got a. dozen students, who were taking their holidays, to go up for a fortnight, and the acreage that they cut was remarkable. If you put lime on the land, you go a long way towards killing the bracken. I am not talking of increasing only the fertility of
arable land, but of grazing land. That is not anything in the nature of a subvention, but is helping the crofter to get his produce out of his own soil.
An hon. Member spoke about light railways. I doubt but the time is past for light railways. He also mentioned roads. Good roads are the one Communistic enterprise of which we can all approve in every part of this House. You cannot spend too much money on roads, provided you get value for money, because the road is open and free, and it allows the individual to run his own machine thereon at his time and free from all restriction. The railroad is a monopoly, and you immediately come up against all sorts of labour and other restrictions, and, besides, monopolies tend to squeeze up costs; but if you have open, free, and proper roads, each individual runs his own vehicle. Not long ago, in Argyllshire, I was driving along the coast in a Ford car, and I said to the driver: "Why do you not get a car of a lighter horse-power and have a cheaper duty to pay?" He replied: "There is no depreciation in a Ford," and I said, "There is bound to be some." He said: "This car cost me £10, and I shall sell it in the autumn for £15. I do not know that I am making any better money than a wage, but I am my own master, and I would rather make half the money and be my own master." That is the Highland spirit, and that is why they will not be industrialised. That is why Lord Leverhulme could make nothing of the Highlanders, and when he called himself Lord of the Isles, the people would have nothing more to do with him. That is why the Highlanders are so intensely interested in getting small holdings and working for themselves, and the true way to help them is to give them the transport that they need to get their produce to market.
There perhaps the Postmaster-General, with his cash-on-delivery system, would be making one of the greatest reforms ever made for agriculture. We would then get what an hon. Member mentioned in a different way, namely, the producer and the consumer brought together, and the man who solves that problem of getting the producer and the consumer face to face has solved the problem of the cost of living Nothing could be more advantageous than the fact that you could get a stone of vegetables, eggs, butter, or
other commodities sent direct from the farm to the consumer. You would eliminate the middleman, and if Orkney can show us how to do it, all the better. They are not Scots by blood, but they are a very industrious people. They have always been a prosperous and a thriving people, and if they can show the Secretary for Scotland and the Board of Agriculture the way to work this co-operative principle, or even supply some sittings of this miraculous draft of hens, it will be a colossal advantage to the whole of Scotland.
The hon. Member touched on the question of afforestation, which, I agree, could go hand in hand with agriculture. It would be an enormous help in many parts of Scotland, but still there are many parts where there could be small holdings, but where there could not be afforestation. There is much danger of specialisation at present with the present Forestry Commission, for I find, at such places as Aehindarroch and Barealdine, in the Oban district, and Glensbellach and other farms at Orrich, in Inverness-shire, the Forestry Commission, in dealing with agriculture has depasturised a number of good farms, and driven the valuable acclimatised sheep stock off them, in order to plant trees, thus committing the same blunder as the Glasgow Corporation did. The latter were given a splendid estate by the generosity of a Glasgow citizen, with some farms, the rent of which was to pay for the upkeep of the groundsmen on the estate. They had not the sense to leave the farms in the possession of the tenants, but took them over themselves, and, of course, being a Corporation enterprise, which is the next thing to a Government enterprise, they lost much money, and, not content with that, they decided to afforest certain parts of it, and their foresters came down and took the best fields on the farms. The Board of Agriculture is not strong enough, or it would prevent these particular things happening. It would tell the Forestry Commission that it must look at Scotland as a whole, and not think that the trees are the only things that matter. They must realise that it is unsound business to drive the people off farms and to clear sheep off good sheep farms. I hope in future the two Departments will work together better.
Reference has been made to Denmark, and I think we could with advantage have more exchange of some of our juvenile population between one country and the other for educational purposes. It would be an advantage if we could have some sort of Rhodes scholarships for young agriculturalists to go to Denmark and learn their methods. In 1837 Denmark was practically a desert, but their King and Queen took up the development of agriculture and made it into the great agricultural community that it has now become. In Scotland, in the Island of Coll, there was great distress 50 years ago, but the then Laird got a first-class cheesemaker over from Wigtown, and himself and his tenants all learnt to make cheese, and P defy any part of Great Britain or the Colonies to make cheese as good as they make it in the Isle of Coll. I have got it introduced into the London market, where it is received with great approbation. [An HON. MEMBER: "Have, you got it into the House? "] I hope to get some of it into the House.
Our schoolmasters, too, could take a lesson from Denmark in agricultural education because our education here is always a townsman's education, whatever a boy is to become; he is always educated to be a teacher or a clerk, or a lawyer, or an advocate, or something at a desk. Our education always seems to take the people away from the natural pursuit of agriculture. The former Secretary for Scotland said that our corn used to be grown in the mine, but as long as the mines are going to be interfered with to the extent to which they are now interfered with, I do not, think we shall get much corn grown there. The urban system of education for country boys has done a great deal of harm, and we shall soon lose, for instance, all our shepherds. They take them away from the shielings down to the villages and board them out, and the boys will not go back and be shepherds. Yet there is no finer occupation, and there is no more cultured or thoughtful type of man than the real Scottish shepherd. In a former generation the boys went out with their fathers to the sheep at five and six years old, and when they were 15 they were splendid shepherds and had learnt their business, but now they are supposed to start at 14 years of age, and they will not do it, and you cannot make shepherds of them, with the result that
we are losing that splendid type of our agricultural population.
6.0 P.M.
I wonder if we could not take a lesson from the oldest civilisation in the world, in the East, where the little boy starts his education with the particular and ends with the general. We start with the general and end with the particular, and if you keep a boy too long with the general, he will never learn the particular. The little boy in that great country which is at present in a, state of civil war, but which had a, civilisation 2,000 years ago when we were all running about in half a sheepskin—I mean China—is started at four years old. If his father is a cabinet-maker, he is a cabinet-maker, and learns right from the beginning, and by 12 is a magnificent craftsman, and goes to school then. We should adopt something of that kind with cur agricultural education. Boys should be taught in the winter, and in the summer time actively assist their parent in his particular occupation. That is the only way we shall keep our agricultural workers. Much might be done with our town population, too. Once men have left the land, it is difficult to get them to go back, though in Canada they have found men make good in these circumstances. As illustrating the effect of prolonged residence in the towns, I was told that a certain magistrate met a man whom he recognised in the market place of Inverness. He was a man who used to take a little boat up and down the Bowling Canal. The magistrate was surprised to think that such a boat could sail from the Clyde, and said, "No doubt, you have suffered some privation and had some experience, but you have had the advantage of seeing some very fine scenery." The reply was, "Ay, but I would not give ae night in the Coocaddens for a' the scenery in the Hielans." That is the corrupted town spirit. We cannot get them to return to the land, but we want to get the agricultural population already there to increase and multiply, and spread all over the land, grow the agricultural produce which is at present imported from Denmark and other countries, and, in that way, adjust the national balance of exports and imports.

Sir ROBERT HAMILTON: I think it is due, in my opening remarks, that I should return thanks for the vote of confidence passed by my hon. Friend in the Orkney hen. The Orkney hen has been referred to before in Debates in this House, and, without being able to say I can guarantee all the figures quoted by my hon. Friend, there is nothing at all remarkable in that part of the world for hens to earn 15s. or 16s. a year. I would, however, say to my hon. Friend, when he asks what difference there is between the West of Scotland and the Orkney Islands, that there is a very considerable difference. There is a very considerable difference in the soil, for one thing. We have the old red sandstone. There is a certain difference in the rainfall as well, and also a considerable difference in the people, and I may say, so far as the Orkneys are concerned, without saying anything derogatory of any other part of Scotland, that we have a very highly intelligent farming population there, who work very hard indeed, and it is perfectly true we make a good deal of money out of our eggs sold through co-operation. But so little satisfied are we with what we have done by co-operation so far, that a number of us are going to Denmark in the summer to study the methods in that country, so that we may sell our eggs on a more satisfactory basis, pay more attention to grading and so on, and make more money out of our eggs than we do at present.
As time is limited. I will confine myself, as shortly as I can, to the main subject on which I wish to offer a few remarks, and that is the subject of land settlement. It has been already referred to by various speakers in the Debate, and I do not think that too much notice can be drawn to the fact that land settlement schemes, so far as they have gone, are, I was going to say, an outstanding disgrace. We have only got to look at the figures of what has been accomplished during the last few years. May I quote this from the report of the Board of Agriculture, 1923:
The Board estimate that the balance of funds provided by the Acts of 1920 and 1921 will not be sufficient to provide for the settlement of the whole of the suitable ex-service applicants ranking for preference.
Mark you, that is only for the ex-service applicants, without regard to the civilian population. That is, in 1923 they said
the funds would be insufficient to carry out their purpose. At that date, only 3,631 applicants for new holdings and enlargements together had been settled by the Board under the various schemes for settlement during and subsequent to the War. If we add to that the number given to us this afternoon, it brings the figure, roughly, to 4,000. In 1923, there were remaining on the Board's lists 10,020 suitable applicants. Deducting 400 from that number, we have 9,600 still, which means that if we go on at this rate, it will take us 24 years to get these men settled. Is that not a hopeless way of dealing with a great national question? In connection with what the right hon. Gentleman has said this afternoon, in sketching out the lines of the policy which he intends to carry out, or hopes to see carried out, in the course of the next few years, with regard to agriculture in Scotland, I would like to quote from the speech he made earlier in the year at the annual dinner of the Fife Agricultural Society:
He criticised the past work of the Board They put in the forefront of their policy the question of land settlement. He was not against land settlement. He was in favour of small holdings under good conditions, but, in his opinion, the first duty of the Board of Agriculture, as long as he had anything to do with it, was that the energies of the Board must be turned more to the development of agriculture, agricultural education and scientific research. Alongside that might come, as a secondary consideration small holdings in Scotland
I should be the last person to say anything against agricultural education or scientific research; they are both very badly needed, and I am very glad to see provision has been made for extending agricultural education and scientific research. But, may I ask, what is the good of agricultural education to a man who cannot get a holding? What is the good of scientific research to a man who is living on an uneconomic holding? Those are the practical questions that need to be dealt with now, and should not be relegated to a second place. I do put it to the right hon. Gentleman that when he says agriculture must come first, and land settlement must come second, he is entering upon a very dangerous line. I would put neither one behind the other, but I would put them alongside one another, and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman if he could not modify that line of policy, and see that both
agriculture and land settlement are treated equally and fairly.
I would also ask whether this slow dealing with the question of land settlement can be considered a proper and a right way of implementing our promise to the ex-service men? Here are these thousands still waiting. It is seven years since the War. They did not need seven years to come to the Colours. We made it a promise that when the War was over and they were demobilised we would take every step to place them on the land, and here they are waiting still. This is a national question that needs dealing with on national lines, and I do not think any Member, whatever constituency in Scotland he may represent, can say for a moment that he or the people of Scotland are satisfied with the way land settlement has been dealt with by the Board of Agriculture in the past. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that the time had come for a. review of how we stood, and I would like to throw out the suggestion that we should go on very different lines from those on which we have been going in the past. Our past experience has shown that land settlement has not been, and is not likely to be, dealt with satisfactorily by a branch of the Board of Agriculture. In my view, it should be dealt with on much longer lines than that. It should be dealt with by a separate commission, with powers to deal with the whole question, looking at it from now right into the future, and not be dealt with from hand to hand, mouth to mouth, and year to year. It is a very much longer question, like that of afforestation. Afforestation has been put into the hands of Forestry Commissioners, so that the whole policy may be laid on lines leading right away into the future. If it be necessary to deal with afforestation on those lines, I say it is equally necessary when we come to plant men upon the land, as when we plant trees upon the land.
In the past, the policy that has been pursued has failed owing to a variety of reasons. One of them, I am afraid, is that Parliament has not insisted on seeing that the policies that have been proposed in past Acts have been carried out. Another reason is that the Board of Agriculture, instead of settling tenants upon estates, have spent most: of their money in purchasing land, and thereby
have held up and circumscribed their powers for developing schemes in the future. The Secretary for Scotland suggested that when the land would not hold any more people, they should emigrate, and he also suggested that there were very great difficulties in parts of the country in finding sufficient land for enlarging holdings. I quite agree that is so, and particularly it must be so in the case of small islands. But I would also remind him that it is not quite true to say that in Orkney and Shetland, the part I know best, there is not land available for the enlargement of holdings. There is a considerable amount of land, I suggest, available for enlargements at the present time. It might, perhaps, interest the Committee if I told them a little piece of history. In the old days, when crofters' holdings were originally laid out, they were designedly laid out on such a scale that the holder could not live on the holding, but must put in his spare time fishing. In that connection there has been a very curious reflex action from illegal trawling. Owing to the illegal trawling interfering with the fishing in home waters, the crofter-fisherman is no longer able, in the way he was in the past, to make a living out of his croft and his fishing, and, therefore, he requires an enlargement of his holding. In many parts of the country where the crofter-fisherman was able to make ends meet by crofting and fishing, owing now to the failure of the inshore fishing, he is demanding an enlargement of his holding, if he is to have an economic holding.
Nothing is more unsatisfactory than settling people on uneconomic holdings. I am afraid that has been done. Not only that, but, having been settled in places to which reference has already been made by my hon. Friend, where there is most inefficient and insufficient means of communication—having, I say, put people on the holdings where the communications are very had and very expensive, it follows that they are handicapped at once in their efforts to make both ends meet and to get their produce to market for sale. By the time they have got their produce away and sold ft, they find that the whole of the profit is gone in the freightage they have to pay. I will add no more, except to say that I
most earnestly ask the Secretary for Scotland not to relegate the question of land settlement into the background, but to see that it is kept in the foreground of any policy that he may lay down for the future. I am not allowed to go into this matter by the Rules of Debate, but I would add that I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not leave out of consideration the great importance of assuring security of tenure to small holdings.

Mr. WESTWOOD: There are four specific questions to which I desire to direct the attention of the Secretary for Scotland arising out of the statement that he made to the House at the beginning of the Debate. May I say that evidently someone who wrote to the "Scotsman" anticipated the statement that the Secretary for Scotland was going to make. The right hon. Gentleman has stated, so far as the outer islands are concerned, that there was not any chance of the extension of land settlement there. I think that was the statement made in the speech opening the Debate. I find, however, in the "Scotsman," dated 5th March, someone, who evidently knows something about the situation so far as the islands are concerned, made this statement:
It is taken for granted in the South that the croft is an economic impossibility, but given fair conditions it need not be so. In this neighbourhood there are not a few crofts which support their owners in tolerable comfort, and were the Western Isles blessed with an efficient and relatively cheap transport service the number of such would be greatly increased.
There is a reason for the difficulties in the Western Islands. There may be a reason for no further extension of crofts, unless we are prepared effectively to deal with the transport service so far as the Western Islands are concerned. I might point out that it will be impossible to make any of these crofts pay, or for the small holdings to be effectively assisted so far as the outer islands are concerned unless the Secretary for Scotland is going to do something by reducing the enormous freightage rates that obtain at present. Here is a comparison of pre War freights and present freights between 1914 and the present time. Take the cost in connection with Barra. In 1914 the transport of one cow was 5s.; at present it is El. One stirk cost 2s. 6d., and the figure is now 13s. [An HON MEMBER:
"What is the destination?"] It makes no difference where the destination is, the comparison is with 1914. One horse cost 10s., and the transport now is £1 5s. One sheep cost 6d., and the figure is now 2s. 6d. I suggest that if you want to help the highlander probably you could do something effective—and you have the power already for subsidising certain services. One of the first things that the right hon. Gentleman or the Department ought to do would be to give orders for the scrapping of the "Cygnet." That old boat was originally made for service on the Forth and Clyde Canal, and certainly not for sea purposes, as it is used at present. In reply to the observation of the hon. Gentleman near to rue, it would only be allowed to go on the Serpentine on the 29th February, and, as that date seldom comes, hon. Members will see what I mean, for it is the only place where this particular yeses' is likely to be seaworthy. If you want to do something to help the Western Isles you have got to use the power you have already further to subsidise the transport service. When the goods freightage has been reduced the goods will be brought to the mainland as cheaply and speedily as possible.
The second question with which I want to deal is that of small holdings and allotments. In answer to a question which I, put to the Secretary for Scotland to-day, we had a somewhat remarkable answer. We find that while the number of small holdings have actually increased, the number of acres of land under arable cultivation has steadily declined during recent years. We find, too, that in ten years the number of men engaged on the land has decreased by 15,000. The Member for Perth (Mr. Skelton), I think it was, said there was no greater folly than putting the wrong people on to the land. I want, in reply to that, to say that there is no greater folly than allowing the right people not to be put on to the land, but to me emigrated, when they might produce in their own land the food which at the present time we import from abroad. I want to suggest that something has got to be done to help on real land settlement so far as the Highlands and Islands are concerned. I hold in my hand here a portion of the report of the Departmental Committee which inquired into the whole
question, and this is what I read from that report:
A delegate from the crofters in Strath Halladale, Sutherlandshire, told the Commissioners in 1892 that 45,000 acres of this valley had been turned into a sheep farm, left to an absentee, and 8,000 acres of that area were subsequently turned into deer forst. Sixty families bad formerly supported themselves in comfortable circumstance, on this land. The middle portion of the strath had been secured to the crofters under the Crofters Act; the area on either side which lied once been so fruitful was now a desert.
Another witness was Colin Chisholm, a man of 80, who was one of those driven out from Glen Cannich in 1832 when that beautiful glen, together with Strathglass and Glen Strathfarrar, was cleared. I want the House to note this statement. He said:
I have seen the finest oats I ever saw South or North, in England or Scotland, growing in the dales of Glen Cannich, the finest potatoes and the finest turnips.
If they could do that in the times gone by, according to the witness in his evidence before the Departmental Committee, then, it means that we are using for deer forests to-day land which, instead of being used merely for the sport of English and Welsh millionaires, might be better used for rearing a bold Scottish peasantry. There is another aspect of the allotment question which I want to refer to, and that is the fact that under Section 18 (3) of the Land Settlement (Scotland) Act, 1919, there is provision made as follows:
The Board of Agriculture may, with the approval of the Secretary for Scotland, apply moneys out of the Agriculture (Scotland) Fund to an amount not exceeding £4,000 in any one year for the purpose of encouraging and developing the provision of allotments throughout Scotland in such manner as they think fit.
I want to know what the Secretary for Scotland proposes to do to apply that provision of the Act? Is he prepared to allocate £4,000 for the purposes of holdings and allotments, as here indicated, so far as Scotland is concerned'? I understand that two applications have been made to the Scotish Board of Agriculture, one by Glasgow and the other by Edinburgh. Both applications, I understand have been turned clown. Obviously, there is going to be no effort made, so far as the Scottish Board of Agriculture is concerned, to help a scheme of allotments. No part of the £4,000 has so far been applied to allotment purposes. The
Departmental Committee on Allotments recommended in 1922 that the money could be most usefully applied in meeting part of the price, of the ground required for allotment purposes and in creating areas for food cultivation. So far as our country is concerned, this will be very materially helped by the Board of Agriculture assisting schemes of allotments. I believe we ought to have allotments near to the large industrial centres, and we might, by that means, be training men for going back to the land—not turning their backs on the land—and for cultivating that land which is desirable in the interests of food production.
We say that up to the present the Secretary for Scotland has not exercised the power which I claim he has got under the particular Section of the Act I have quoted. We desire that he should help on the scheme of allotments, and do everything possible to develop small holdings so far as the Highlands of Scotland are concerned—and also, indeed, as far as the Lowlands are concerned. In my own constituency there have been individuals who have repeatedly applied for small holdings. There seems to be no possibility of the extension of small holdings. Peebles-shire is one of the counties where you could successfully develop a scheme of small holdings, and, because of the extension of small holdings, go on replanting the hillside, and go in for a scheme of afforestation for the purpose of replanting the hillsides which were denuded of their trees during the War. At the present time, it may be truly said that so far as the Highlands of Scotland are concerned that
The highlands all are hunting ground
Where men are few and deer abound;
And desolation broods profound
O'er the homes of Culloden.
I want to see instead of deer abounding, men abounding, and I want the Secretary for Scotland to exercise his power for the purposes of developing small holdings on the lines suggested.
The other point I want to make reference to is the need for closer co-operation between the Board of Agriculture and the Education Department. I believe, if we are to have a real system of agricultural education so far as Scotland is concerned, there must be some one body held responsible for carrying it through. There
is at the present time, no one body responsible. I know one educational authority, that I am closely connected with, which has indeed appealed to two Secretaries of Scotland, the last Secretary and the present Secretary, and the last certainly gave us plenty of sympathy. I hope that the present Secretary for Scotland will ladle out the cash, and that will help materially in developing our scheme of education. The late Secretary was a Fifer. The present Secretary is a Fifer. I also come from Fife. Perhaps that combination may bring some influence to bear upon the present Secretary to give us special grants as he has the power to do. The education authority to which I have referred is very interested in agricultural education. We are anxious to bear our share of the burden if the authority is prepared to send the money. Many Boards are prepared to accept responsibility. But we claim there ought to be some assistance from the, national purse if we are prepared to carry through experiments in agricultural education. I trust that out of the funds available it may be possible for the Secretary for Scotland to encourage education authorities desirous of giving some form of agricultural education in their particular areas; and I trust he will also bring pressure to bear, and provide the necessary money for the payment of adequate salaries at our agricultural colleges. It is unfair the miserable, salaries being paid at present, in connection with the West of Scotland Agricultural College, in connection also with the East of Scotland, in fact, with all our agricultural colleges. I suggest those who are teaching in connection with those colleges ought to be classed as doing service equal to that of anyone connected with the universities. It is a nearer approach to university teaching than, shall I say, even to teaching in our secondary schools.
In introducing this Debate, the Secretary for Scotland made reference to the expenditure on research in connection with diseases of animals. I suggest that he might bring influence to bear upon the English authorities responsible to secure the removal of some of the difficulties in the way of sheep farmers in Scotland under the regulations requiring the double dipping of sheep. These regulations are-bearing most heavily upon sheep farmers, particularly in the South of Scotland. If there be an outbreak of disease, they
agree that the areas ought to be scheduled, and that there should be double dipping where sheep scab has broken out in a particular district; but where no disease exists there ought not to be a regulation, applied to the whole of Scotland, to compel the double dipping of sheep which may be clear of disease. I trust he will bring pressure to bear upon the Minister of Agriculture for England who, I understand, is also the responsible authority so far as Scotland is concerned.
In conclusion, I wish to point out that agriculture is one of the greatest problems we have to deal with at the present time. We ought to produce the maximum amount of food in our own land, so as to counteract the effects of our declining export trade. We ought to produce food in our own land instead of importing it from abroad. We could do that if we extended small holdings and allotments, and carried through effectively the work of agricultural research.

Sir ALEXANDER SPROT: It has been said that this Debate, so far, has been rather lugubrious in tone, and I desire to impart a more cheerful aspect to it. In the first place, it is cheering to me to find the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland occupying his present position. He has a great many Departments of very diverse character under his control, but there can be no doubt, so far as this Department with which we are now dealing is concerned, that the right hon. Gentleman is the right man in the right place. He is not only a practical agriculturist himself, but he comes from a notable agricultural family. Hon. Members will admit that there is no man who has done more for Scottish agriculture than the right hon. Gentleman's father. In every department of it, in cattle and horse-breeding and in arable cultivation, he was a leading man in Scottish agriculture, and the right hon. Gentleman is following in his footsteps, and has been successful at exhibitions of stock not only in Scotland but also in London. Therefore, the fact of his being where he is leads me to take a rather more hopeful view of the state of Scottish agriculture than, perhaps, one would otherwise be inclined to do.
I should like to congratulate him at the outset on having got the Scottish Agricultural Conference going. I regret very much the hitch which has prevented
the summoning of a similar conference for England, and I hope it is being got over, for I was very sorry, both as an agriculturist and as a party man, when I heard there was some prospect of its being abandoned. That conference was a great feature of our election campaign, in which we held forth the prospect of useful suggestions being obtained for dealing with the agricultural situation. The idea was not to bring together the representatives of the different classes, the landowners, the farmers, the labourers in a spirit of antagonism. No! The idea was to bring representatives of all classes together, without thought of party, to consider the best measures to be taken to raise agriculture from its present rather depressed condition. That was a sound idea, and I am glad that it is being carried out in Scotland, at any rate, whatever is happening in England.
I would like to say a word, also, on the subject of research. One of the most important matters, if it could be done, would be to find some remedy for foot-and-mouth disease. Only this morning a gentleman, who had no knowledge that this Debate was going to take place today, brought me a pamphlet about a Swiss remedy which I shall be glad to send to the right hon. Gentleman in the hope that he will read it; he can read it if he likes, and if not he can turn it over to some of his experts in the Research Department in the hope that there may be something in it. It would be a very happy coincidence if I should be in a position to point out something which would really be of use on this very important question.
I associate myself with all that has been said on both sides of the House with regard to co-operation and marketing. My right hon. Friend is one of those who has stuck to this question of extending co-operation in Scotland, being one of the original guarantors of the society which has this matter in hand. I was one of the guarantors also. It has made progress in some parts of the country; in Wigtownshire, I believe, on the dairyland, and also, we have been told, in Orkney, co-operation has done good work; but in many parts the progress, unfortunately, has been very slow. In the parts of the country I am acquainted with farmers co-operate in buying—they buy feeding-stuffs, manures,
binder-twine and so on in co-operation with each other—but so far one cannot get them to co-operate in selling, and I think that is a very great mistake. I know many places in France where the producer and the consumer are directly brought together. At St. Omer, which is the centre of a very fruitful agricultural country, you will see on any market day every sort of agricultural produce brought into the market by the producers themselves. You will see farmers' wives, rows of them, with eggs, chickens and other things, and in another corner of the market you will find little pigs and vegetables. All those things are brought in by those who actually produce them, and the housewives of the town go round with a servant behind with a basket and buy what is required for the week's household supplies. That is a most excellent system, which I would like to see introduced into this country, because it means greater economy in distribution. I cannot see any objection to it, and in the report of the Commission which sat under Lord Linlithgow one will find how much more might be done in the direction I am suggesting.
I do not want to take up more time of the Committee, because I think that is perhaps the chief thing we can suggest for improving the condition of agriculturists, and more especially smallholders, at the present time. Over and above that there is the question of transport. Our railway charges are a great deal too high, and I hope there is some prospect of the charges for agricultural produce, for manures and feeding stuffs, being lowered. The Government ought to insist that the railway companies take steps in that direction very shortly. Something could be done also, if you had markets which I have described, by organising motor transport or encouraging people locally to organise it. Lorries might be sent round certain districts to collect agricultural produce and take it into the market to be sold.
The Scottish Board of Agriculture does not receive many compliments from either side of the House. There is a good deal of grumbling about it, and no doubt there are many faults in the Department. It is said to be too bureaucratic, too dilatory, and so on, but I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman, being himself a practical agriculturist, will, before he has been very
long in office, be able to apply some stimulus to the Department, and that we shall all see a very marked improvement before very long.

Major Sir ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR: We listened with great interest to the speech of the Secretary for Scotland, but I cannot help thinking that he glided rather lightly over some of the matters which are of the greatest importance to the Highlands. One question above all ethers which at the present time is arousing alarm, consternation and despondency, and which is striking at the root of the feeling of security that is an essential condition of good husbandry and arousing an increasingly bitter sense of grievance in the Highlands of Scotland, is that of the resumption of holdings by purchasers who have acquired them for residence. Everybody knows that sales have taken place of estates all over Scotland. Landlords have been hard put to it, and they have had to sell their land, but I think some steps should be taken to protect the smallholders who are the sitting tenants, who were given a promise of security under the Acts of 1886 and 1911. I know it would be contrary to the rules of the House to debate questions on the estimates involving legislation, but I ask the Secretary for Scotland to take the point. I have just mentioned into consideration.
From the Highland standpoint the next most important question is that of land settlement. I listened with dismay when I heard the Secretary for Scotland state that the Board of Agriculture would primarily concern itself with the large main interests of agriculture which he described as education and research work. That is quite contrary to the plain letter of the Act of 1911. The hon. Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten), who is one of the right hon. Gentleman's keenest supporters, said just now that the Board of Agriculture was constituted primarily to promote small holdings and land settlement, and that is well known to be the case to anyone who has studied this question. Under Section 5 of the Act of 1911, the sum of £15,000 was placed at the disposal of the Board of Agriculture Congested Districts Fund, and another £185,000 was set apart annually for the following purposes: firstly, the constitution of new holdings, then the enlargement of existing holdings, thirdly the im-
provement and rebuilding of crofters' dwellings. Those are the principal objects to which this money ought to be applied.
Lastly, the money was to be used for the other powers and duties of the Board of Agriculture. I want to know how much of this money is spent under this heading. How much of the total of £200,000 is going for small holdings? We have had in one way and another a great deal of money voted for the encouragement of small holdings during the past few years, but the Board of Agriculture cannot get ahead because they are frequently held up in their schemes until a long line of experts have examined their proposals and the Treasury have given their sanction. If the whole of this £200,000 or even £150,000 or £175,000 was earmarked definitely for small holdings, and for the enlargement of small holdings and the rebuilding of crofters' houses, then the Secretary for Scotland could go ahead, and. as he got reimbursed by the Treasury more of this fund would be available and ha could carry over any balance to the following year.
As it is, the work of the Board is held up because so much of this money is now being spent upon other objects and the Board is dependent for every new advance on the authorisation of the Treasury. There are other ways in which the Treasury puts its spoke into the wheels of the operations of the Board of Agriculture in Scotland. When, for example, the Board buys an estate and pays for it £20,000, frequently it only requires an area of land costing some £5,000 for the purposes of land settlement, and the Board then sell the remainder of the estate, and they pay back the balance to the Treasury. Notwithstanding this, the Treasury debits the Board of Agriculture with the whole £20,000 which has been paid for the estate. The result is that that policy again limits the amount of money at the disposal of the Board for the vital work of land settlement.
I want to say a few words about the question of the first preference ex-service men. The last Secretary for Scotland stated that this was no longer going to be a condition of land settlement scheme that preference should be given to first preference ex-service men. May I point out, however, that schemes are still being held up for that reason, and it works very harshly in the case of many deserving
civilian applicants in districts where it is absolutely essential for the holdings to be put on an economic basis.
It also works very hard on those 80,000 men who were in hospitals when the regulations were made, and who only came out after the date when applications had to be made, and consequently they found themselves debarred, through being in the hospital, from registering themselves as first preference ex-service men. A great many men became first preference ex-service men, and were offered holdings in 1919 and 1920, but they refused them because they said the rents were too high, and they could not make a success of them at the prices at which they were offered. Now those holdings have been revalued, and the value of the buildings has been reduced in some eases to one-third, and in other cases to as low as one-fifth, and it has been proved that these men were quite right when they said they could not make a success of those holdings on those terms.
It is not right that the men who took that view and refused the holdings on those grounds should not now be allowed to apply, and should be struck off the list of preference men. I think they should be allowed now to apply for holdings, and their applications should be taken into more sympathetic consideration because of the true instinct which they showed by refusing those holdings in 1919. In Caithness and Sutherland and in other parts of Scotland land settlement is being held up, but in my opinion too much blame has been attributed to the Board of Agriculture on this account. This Board work within the limits of a certain system, and they are responsible to the Secretary for Scotland, and the blame should be placed on his shoulders and the shoulders of his predecessors.
I was rather amused at the remark made by the predecessor of the Secretary for Scotland, because I remember that last year the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Adamson) brought small holdings in at the tail end of his speech. I think the Secretary for Scotland is to blame for the slowness with which the policy of the Board is being carried out. I know he has his difficulties with the Treasury, but he should insist on all those hindrances being removed. I would like to refer to the scheme for relieving the congestion in
Canister and also that little cluster of townships round Lairg including Knockdhu, Ballone, Rheambrek, Tornich and Torrobol. I should like to hear something about those schemes, because it is of real importance to get them moving and try to place those townships on an economical and self-supporting basis. If the Board of Agriculture cannot get ahead under the present system, and the Board of Agriculture cannot help them, and the Secretary for Scotland is going to carry out his scheme of concentrating on research and education and if small holdings, and land settlement is going to be treated as a very subsidiary sphere of action, then I say the time has come to take small holdings out of the control of the Board of Agriculture altogether and a land settlement commission should be instituted to deal with land settlement. In far too many cases the Forestry Commission has taken over land which ought to be used for the wintering of sheep, and they have not taken land which they could take in Sutherland and some parts of Caithness which they could have most usefully taken over and worked in connection with land settlement, and which would have given ancillary occupation to smallholders. Instead of doing that they have taken land which would have been better used for small holdings and the wintering of sheep.
7.0 P.M.
I wish to say a word or two about seed oats. The late Secretary for Scotland got a Vote through of £100,000 for this purpose, and as I have criticised his policy in regard to land settlement, I would like to pay him a tribute for providing money for the provision of seed oats. I understand that £45,000 of that money has not been used. May I point out that there are one or two cases of great hardship in this respect in my own constituency. There are one or two places such as Armadale where I should like the Board of Agriculture to allow some seed oats and potatoes, because the people there have been very hardly hit by the failure of their crops in consequence of local storms. Again it is the crofters in that district who have applied to the Board of Agriculture for assistance in the supply of materials for a fence at Topegan, and I claim that the Board should not be less generous in this respect than the previous private landlord who
supplied materials in a similar case before the Board bought the property. Then just alongside Armadale there is a pier which was lost in a recent storm, and I would like to know whether the Board of Agriculture could not help the fishermen of Farr with their pier. The people in the parish of Farr have been very badly hit in regard to these three matters. I have also raised questions time after time about liming and drainage, and that is a matter of the utmost importance, because there has been great dissatisfaction with the allocation of the drainage grants, and I hope it will be possible to get a larger sum for this purpose and deal with a larger proportion of the applications next year. This not only gives useful employment to those who are under-employed and out of employment, but it also means that the productivity of the soil is increased, and it means that more people can be permanently employed on the soil and it leaves behind an asset to the whole country. The Secretary for Scotland stated that he was considering this question of lime, and that he was going to try to restore some of those limekilns. On the shore of John o' Groats there is a great deal of shell sand, which I am told when burnt gives a 98 per cent. lime. I suggest that source of lime may be taken into consideration. There are also those limekilns at Loch Erribol, and I hope the Secretary for Scotland will consider whether they can be restored. He said it would be necessary to spend £3,000. My information is that £400 or £500 would put them into workable order, and the lime would be valuable, not only for building purposes—many of the shooting lodges were built of that lime many years ago—but also for the reclamation of land. There is a great deal of land in that district in the Board of Agriculture's possession which is derelict. With that lime the land could be reclaimed. This lime is on the property of the Government at the present time. It could be put to useful purposes. The lime could be exported to Caithness and to Ross-shire. That lime has been used in past years in Ross-shire and the Black Isle. It could be carried to Orkney, where they are in need of lime. It would be a useful industry, which would be of the utmost value, not only to the people in that
vicinity but to the people of Orkney, Caithness, Sutherland and Ross-shire, and it would be putting this Government property to a useful and economic use.
I would like to point out the need there is of developing all those rural industries and doing all we can at the present time to promote land settlement in the Highlands. We have recently had unemployment Debates in this House in which the seriousness of the situation has been depicted by speakers on all sides of the House. There is no immediate prospect of getting back our foreign trade, of bringing it up to the pitch at which it stood in 1913. All the more necessity, therefore, is there to concentrate on the development of our own home resources. There are £350,000,000 worth of food being imported into this country of a kind which we could grow. We could grow a great deal of it. There is land undeveloped, especially in Scotland. If you look at the agricultural returns for Scotland, you will find arable land, grazing land, rough grazing, mountain and heath land in the returns, and there is still 25 per cent. of the land of Scotland unaccounted for. Everything should be done by the right hon. Gentleman and his Department to promote the fullest development of the land of Scotland. Men in Scotland, in the Highlands, are drifting into the cities and across the seas. The best blood is being drained out of the Highlands. A bold policy of land settlement in Scotland would not only check that tide of emigration, and reverse it and save the Highland race, but it would enable the Highlands, instead of adding to the gravity of the problem in the great cities, to make a great contribution to the relief of unemployment and to the production of food from our land.

Mr. WRIGHT: In view of the agreement with regard to limiting Members' time, I want to confine myself almost entirely to one or two aspects of this question of agriculture, and, as far as possible, not to traverse any of the points raised by previous speakers. We are engaged in debating an extremely interesting question, and I am quite sure our time will not be misused. I agree entirely with what the hon. Baronet below the Gangway (Sir A. Sinclair) has said, except upon one point. I am not going to attempt to debate it with him
at the present time. We have all agreed in all parts of this House that Britain should produce more of its food supplies from its own soil We are all agreed that a very large amount of the food referred to by the hon. Baronet could be produced here. My only point at the moment is that no person can yet say what any acre of land can produce. If that be true, then the possibilities at some future time of producing all the foodstuffs has a logical basis.
Apart from that altogether, I want to appeal to the Secretary for Scotland upon one or two points. Last year, when these questions were under consideration, I urged that, while it was very important that new research work should be attempted, it was of some importance that the results of research work already done should be made available to Members of this House and the community at large. Very valuable research work has been done already in other parts of the world as well as in this country. It is exceedingly difficult for Members in this House to obtain records of those results. In America and Canada very important results have been obtained. There is the work of the Saunders, father and son, who produced Marquis wheat. Their work has been recorded by Professor Buller. There is the work of men like Dr. J. W. Streeter. Ninety-nine per cent. of the people of this country do not know anything about this kind of work which has already been accomplished. I appealed last, year to the Secretary for Scotland that those results should be made available, just as the results of Professor Biffen in this country as regards wheat.
I would refer to the importance of the improvement of the cultivation of the land, and agricultural education and research. For instance, if we are ever to get full value of the natural resources in Scotland we shall soon be obliged to develop the latent water power in Scotland with regard to agriculture and for other matters. An estimate was given a good many years ago by a civil engineer, called Mr. Munro, who declared that there was sufficient water power in Scotland running to waste to run the whole of the machinery in Scotland at the present time. It is said that we have a better water supply in Scotland than they have in Switzerland. Our water supply has not been developed. As a
matter of fact, the Water Power Resources Committee of the Board of Trade, in 1919, expressed the opinion that in a portion of Scotland alone schemes could be developed for the generation of 1,200,000,000 of Board of Trade units per annum, a quantity equal to a quarter of the total supply of all the steam power in Great Britain in 1917–18. Therefore, if that could be done, I submit that it would be of immense value to the development of agriculture in Scotland, because electric power is going to play a very great part in years to come so far as agriculture is concerned. I am not thinking of the application of electricity to plant life. It is known now that 25 per cent. higher results can be obtained by the use of electricity on plant life apart from its use in lighting and heating. The most up-to-date farmers in the South of England are applying electricity to their holdings with very great advantage so far as farming is concerned.
There is another matter of some importance with regard to water power—the development of our rivers and the deepening and widening of them. It is a well-known fact that in many parts of the country there is a good deal of land which is water-logged, and can only produce as it ought to produce if adequately and properly drained. Lord Bledisloe expressed the view a few years ago that the food supply of this country could be doubled, and he attributed half of that increase to the effect if those water-logged lands were adequately and properly drained. Fortunately, we have the machinery whereby that kind of work can be done. There was an important machine sent to India quite recently which was capable of developing a channel 200 feet wide and 12 feet deep. It could cut 200 to 400 cubic yards per hour, and be worked by two men. If we sent that machinery to India, surely we could use it for the improvement of our agricultural land in this country. I do not believe it is really, as necesssary as the Secretary for Agriculture has suggested, that more men should be sent out of this country.
I believe vast possibilities are here still so far as reclamation of land is concerned. For the last two or three thousand years in this country land has been gradually
reclaimed, and, if the yield to-day is four times greater than it was five or six hundred years ago, it is due chiefly to the development of the land of this country. I should like to see some really great important scheme adopted with regard to the reclamation and improvement of the land; not merely the twopenny-halfpenny scheme which is in vogue at the present time in Scotland. One of the previous speakers has referred to the fact that this Debate has been of rather a depressing character up to date, and it seems to me that there is a Gilbertian aspect about the matter when we read that last year there was 7s. 7d. set aside for land reclamation in Scotland—£1 a week and 7s. 7d. over. That shows how seriously we have taken this question into account. In other countries they are doing very much more than that.
May I call the attention of the Secretary for Scotland to a very important thing which has happened within modern times in Germany. There was the desert of Lupitz, developed by Schlutz, a well-known farmer, who had some 350 acres of desert land assessed at 1s. 6d. a year, and at the end of 25 years' steady working he was producing 15 bushels of wheat and oats to the acre, and three or four tons of potato. That is a possibility which can be accomplished here. We have had great schemes of reclamation in this country. There was the draining of The Wash; there was the great scheme of Vermuiden; there was the great schemes of men like John Rennie. According to a report in one of the evening papers last week, The Wash between Lincoln and Norfolk is being drained. There are miles of excellent land being brought into cultivation in England so far as the reclaiming of The Wash is concerned. Seventy thousand acres have been reclaimed from the sea since the Romans were here. There was a very great scheme in Scotland 80 years ago. The late Marquess of Tweeddale came from India and settled upon his own land in Scotland, and undertook some 1,200 acres of land and cultivated it upon a new basis which was called the Yester Deep Scheme of Cultivation. On these 1,200 acres, by this new method of agriculture, the Marquess of Tweeddale, at the end of five or six years, was getting four times what the yield had previously been on the average.
There are many similar instances of that kind in different parts of the world, and, if they could be applied even to a small extent to the land of Scotland, there is absolutely no need to send the best blood of the country to distant parts of the world while we allow our own land to lie uncultivated and undeveloped. We have one of the best markets in Scotland for all the products which can be obtained from the land. We are confirmed in this opinion by such an eminent man as Lord Lovat who, in a paper which he read in December, 1920, said, speaking of arable land, apart from the land devoted to deer forests, that there were still some 3,000 acres of arable land in Scotland awaiting development, and that much of the hill land was only producing about 2s. to 2s. 6d. worth of beef or wool year by year, when very much better results might be obtained if it were properly brought into cultivation. There are opportunities for reclaiming vast quantities of land and bringing about a higher standard of cultivation, and if that were done there is no doubt that we should be able to deal, to some extent, with the problem of unemployment, which concerns some of us very acutely indeed.
A previous speaker has drawn the attention of the Secretary for Scotland to one or two hard cases in his own division. I have hundreds of cases in my division of the very greatest hardship in connection with this problem. One of the evils of modern times is the rush from the agricultural areas into the great towns and cities, which have become such congested centres of population, and where, with our foreign trade, or some portion of it, lost, years of trade depression, poverty and destitution, so far as we can see, are facing the people. We must try and solve these problems in the interests of these people. One of the most painful cases that has ever occurred in my experience occurred only a week ago in this very House, when I learned that a man, with his wife and five children, whose ages were from nine years upwards, had actually walked from Blantyre, in Scotland, to London in search of work. We have hundreds of thousands of men unemployed who would be only too glad to have an opportunity of cultivating the soil of their native land if that opportunity were provided. I hope the Secretary for Scotland will take this question to heart, and try, in
conjunction with his colleagues, to hit upon some really big, first-class scheme of land reclamation that will provide employment for these men, who are quite capable of doing this kind of work.
In conclusion, I would say that I hope we shall not always be, like the cow's tail, behind with regard to the information that is available. The right hon. Gentleman has said that, with regard to the analysis of soil and so on, experiments are being made, in co-operation, as I understood him to say, with experts from America; but, for 10 to 15 years past, American farmers have been able to send a thimbleful of soil to their experimental stations and have it analysed, so that they can be told precisely what its ingredients are and what kind of manures and fertilisers should be used in order to improve their land on a large scale. Why should we, who have been one of the leading agricultural nations in the world as regards our land, our animals, and our crops, linger 15 or 20 years behind what is being done in the experimental stations of the United States and Canada? I hope that all this work will be speeded up. I would appeal also to the right hon. Gentleman to eneavour to place at our disposal the results of the previous investigations to which I have referred, so that those who are interested in these problems, and the agricultural community at large, may be able to act upon the results of these researches and see if we can produce similar results here. Agriculture is the very foundation of our industrial system, and it will always remain one of the most important industries of the world; and from that point of view more attention should be devoted to it, and, as I believe, more money should be, allotted to it, than has been the case in the past.

Vice-Admiral Sir A. HENNIKER, HUGHAN: I have the extraordinary, good fortune, not only to represent the constituency of Galloway but also to live there. It is tucked away, as hon. Members know, in the south-west corner of Scotland, and is a sheep-farming and dairy-farming district. Our greatest burden is the upkeep of roads, which tells very hardly on the district. In the northern part of Galloway, where I live, a rate of a penny in the £ only represents £200 or there-
abouts, and, consequently, any extra burden in the way of upkeep of roads tells very hardly on us and raises our rates very considerably. I do not know if I am in order, but I cannot help thinking that, if only the first-class roads could be taken over by the Government altogether, it would help us very greatly.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Captain FitzRoy): That is not in order on the present occasion.

Sir A.HENNIKER-HUGHAN: Another grievance that we have is Summer Time. I hope I am in order in regard to this, because it really does come into agriculture. What our farmers want is that there should be only four months of Summer Time in the year.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. and gallant Member will not be in order in going into that either.

Sir A. HENNIKER-HUGHAN: Then I will leave that; but the improvement of agriculture would be very much greater in Galloway if we could have more time from May to September to work in the morning and in the evening. One of our great difficulties is bracken. Bracken grows a great deal all over the country, and there I think that, if we could get Government help, it would be of very great service, because cutting the bracken is a most expensive job. It has to be cut three times before you get rid of it. Galloway is called the Highlands of the Lowlands. Perhaps the only difference between it and the Highlands is that our hills are not quite so high, and also—which will, I think, please hon. Members opposite—there are no deer forests. The largest deer in Galloway is the roe deer, and that, of course, does not entail large forests to keep it going. Afforestation is doing very well with us at the present moment, and as regards afforestation I am riot in agreement with the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten), who is not at the moment in the Committee. The representative of the Forestry Commission who came down to Galloway only took the very poorest of the land, and they have undertaken a considerable amount of afforestation in Galloway, which is doing very well indeed. There has been no difficulty whatever in regard to clashing with the farmers; it has been a very great success.
My main reason for rising was that I wanted to bring to the notice of the Secretary for Scotland—there have been letters on the subject already—a great scheme of reclamation, which has been mentioned by the last speaker, for the deepening of the River Dee, which flows right through the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. We hope to get the river deepened, and thereby reclaim several thousand acres of very excellent land. The only difficulty is that we have not the money to do it ourselves, and, although, no doubt, we could get an unemployment grant, it would be very difficult for us to raise the remainder. I feel that if the Secretary for Scotland would take favourable notice of that scheme it would do a great deal for the good of Galloway.

Sir MURDOCH MACDONALD: Looking at land settlement, particularly as it affects the Highlands and the county which I have the honour to represent, it seems to me that the Board of Agriculture regard it as a scheme whereby they ought to get back in rents the money that they expend in settling the people on the land. I think we are all aware that former Parliaments have recognised that land settlement ought to be undertaken in order to reverse the previous policy, whereby people were being crowded out of the land and out of the country. The Secretary for Scotland has stated this afternoon that the Board of Agriculture in future is going to devote its energies largely to the educational side of agriculture. I think—and in this I am in slight disagreement with some Members from Scotland—that there would be no great harm in that, because the land settlement problem could probably be taken out of its hands, and arrangements made for a real land settlement which would recognise that a rental could not be returned equal to the amount spent in capital on arranging the land settlement.
At the present moment land settlement is taking place, or has taken place in recent years, say, in Skye, and the people are put on the land—consisting of a certain amount of agricultural land and a certain amount of outrun or hillland—but practically no fencing is supplied. Constant applications are made for fencing, because their neighbours, or neighbouring farmers' cattle,
stray on to the crofters' land, and there is constant trouble. At the same time, with a view to economy, proper roads are not made; sometimes there are no roads at all. I myself know of cases where houses have been planted on the hillside without any access at all to the main road. It is quite impossible for an ordinary crofter who is settled on the land to supply these things for himself, and if it is right, as Parliament and the country have decided that it is, to get as many people into the country districts as possible, a certain amount of money must be spent in order to do so, and rents must not be charged which would be the real economic rents. Probably the better course would be that the Land Courts should settle what the rents would be in any specific case, after all those things have been done which are necessary in order to ensure that the crofter or small landowner, when he has the land, shall be enabled to make an economic living on it.

Mr. HARDIE: It is a very remarkable thing that, although to-day we have travelled very far, and very many things have been approached, the one thing that has not been touched upon, but has been studiously avoided by those on the Government Benches is this: Why is it that, in a Debate like this, when we are dealing with land and land purchase, we are never told what the rating was on the land before purchase, nor what it is after purchase? We are never told about the money-bags that are filled between those two points. On the occasion when a Bill relating to allotments was brought before the House, we were told that the allotment holder could get cheaper land from the private individual than he could from a corporation. But they never told the truth. They never told the price the landowners took from the community. They never told about the small rates they paid as private owners compared with the rates after its purchase. I should like the Secretary for Scotland to give us some little light as to the difference in rates in land privately held and land after it is broken up into allotments. While on this question, may I draw attention to the £4,000 per annum that ought to have been used for the development of allotments. I should like him to say why this £4,000 which was allotted has never been used, and if he is
in earnest in the development of small allotments, why this has not been done.
The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) spoke of the necessity of training a boy for agriculture from four years of age. He pointed out that if you did not take a boy from school till he was 14 he was frightened for the cow. Evidently what was in the hon. and learned Gentleman's mind is that he would rather have a boy not frightened for the cow, but, when he reached the age of 14, frightened for the schoolmaster and education. That is the idea that lies behind the whole of the Conservative policy, to try to keep the working-class child from being educated. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] You cannot deny it. It is your policy all through. It is true industrially. The rich people's children are to have their education continued beyond 14 while the working-class child is to be forced to work in factories under uneconomic conditions. No one can deny that statement of fact. Then from this same great brain we had the suggestion that silos should be built underground so that the carts could dump the stuff in. That shows that the hon. and learned Gentleman knows nothing of what a silo is for. It may be quite easy to dump the stuff in, but you have to have certain conditions which you cannot get when your instrument is underground.
Coming to the question of transport, we have had light railways and roads, but in all these things we have been dealing with main arteries, that is to say you have only considered the case where the farmer collects his stuff from his fields and puts it on to the main light railway, the main transport road or some other main artery. There is a much more important subject to be considered in farming if you are going to do it scientifically. When I was a boy I could drive a horse in my holidays and weed turnips, so I know what I am talking about when I speak of child labour in the fields. Take the case of a man who has a big farm and no roads leading to his fields. He either racks his horse, which costs £50 or £100, or he ruins his carts, because you cannot have roads where you are going to grow wheat. We claim to be a scientifically-advanced class, on paper. We are the greatest nation on earth, on paper, and yet in your biggest farms, parts of which may be four miles from the home farm, you are dependent
on horse and cart, just the same as Noah, only he had a bullock instead of a horse.
How are we to deal with this question of getting the home farm in direct touch in every direction with its outlying parts without racking the horses and straining the men? It may be done more cheaply than by a horse and cart. It can be done by means of aerial ropeways. [Interruption.] An hon. Member here is sneering in his ignorance. I will take in hand to put up a ropeway which will take a load of a ton anywhere inside three miles and deliver it at a lorry at the home farm, in the main transport road. England does not appear to be interested in this business, but I hope the Prime Minister, who is still a bit of a Scotsman—he has not lost that—will stand in behind the Secretary for Scotland and deal with this matter. For instance, at the top of Loch Inverary, if you want to go from one place to another, you have to follow a course of the shape of the letter "U." If you want to bring stuff from one place to another a ropeway will save a distance of 94 miles. It can be done. We are doing it at slate quarries, where it does not matter. In all the hilly parts this is the system that is bound to come, to feed your main arteries of railways or heavy transport roads. You are not going to have scientific transport in agriculture until you lift the crates of turnips from the field and put them on the main transport road. Then you will be able to pay higher wages, and even to carry eggs without breaking them. I hope the Secretary of State will consider these few suggestions.

Sir J. GILMOUR: I want, in the first place. to make it perfectly clear that when I laid it down that the duty of the Board of Agriculture for Scotland is to concern itself primarily with agriculture and subsequently with land settlement and other things, I would have the Committee understand—and I repeat it—that no land settlement can be made in any measure a success unless it has behind it and alongside it a sound agriculture, and that while land settlement as we know it in Scotland, which has been mainly confined to the Highlands, is of vast importance, in my judgment it is still a secondary thing to the main question of agriculture. I am satisfied that we can not only progress in agriculture, but we can also give absolute
fairness to the problem of land settlement alongside of that policy. Several hon. Members have drawn attention to the problem of skinned land. It is quite clear that skinned lands, as they are known in Germany, Denmark and elsewhere, have proved not unremunerative. That is to say, when the peat surface has been cleared away you have been able to find under it a soil which has repaid working. In Scotland I am afraid the great bulk of the skinned lands are not likely to give so great a return, but I think it would be right that the Board of Agriculture should make a certain definite experiment with this matter in certain quarters and, having given it a fair trial, we may be able to evolve a policy on a wider scale. I mentioned also that in my judgment we were now reaching a stage when we must ask those who desire to be settled upon the land sometimes to move out of their immediate areas. I think that is essential for the progress of this scheme. That does not mean, in my judgment, that wherever it is possible to find land in the vicinity that land shall not be used. All I say is that I am satisfied that the man who really wishes to go upon the soil must be reasonable in so far that if he is offered a fair opportunity of having a holding which will give him a fair return it is not reasonable that the State should be told that they must give him a particular holding or retain him in a particular district. That is all I want to establish.
I was very glad indeed to hear the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Johnston) speaking so strongly in support of agricultural co-operation. I am satisfied, from some personal experience of the matter, that if we can induce people to understand what benefits this will bring to them we shall be doing an immense amount of good. It is a slow matter, but I am very hopeful that, as a result of this Debate and the great measure of support from all sides of the House, a fresh impetus will be given and interest taken by many who have not taken an active part in the movement. I agree with those who have drawn attention to the necessity of a very close co-operation between the Forestry Commission and the Board of Agriculture. That was one of the first things upon which I made inquiry when I took over my present office, and I am satisfied that as matters stand at present—and I hope
this will be maintained—no important steps will be taken by the Forestry Department without first referring to the Board of Agriculture, and that as far as possible there shall be close co-operation between the two Departments, because it is quite clear that a great benefit will accrue to the small owner if he can work in conjunction with forestry schemes in planting, cleaning and draining.
That brings me to the question which many hon. Members have raised of draining and liming. I hope this question will be carefully investigated and reported upon by the Agricultural Conference. I know of nothing which would give a greater impetus to the better production on existing land and the improvement of other land than the system of drainage followed by liming. The two must go hand in hand. Up to now this system of drainage has been provided for out of grants for unemployment. I do not know what the recommendation of the Commission will be, but it may well be that we shall have to explore some system of linking this up directly with agriculture apart from the question of unemployment. However it is used, it will mitigate unemployment and under-employment. The more closely it is associated with agriculture proper, the more likely it is to be effective.
I have been asked about the salaries of those working in the agricultural colleges. I understand that this is a matter which will shortly be brought before me on a Report which has keen made on the subject, and I can assure the Committee, that I will give it the most careful and sympathetic consideration.

Mr. MAXTON: To which Report is the right hon. Gentleman referring?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I understand that this matter has been inquired into. I am not quite sure by which body it has been investigated, but a Report is coming up to me on this subject, and I will give the most careful consideration to it.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Is it not Lord Constable's Committee?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I think it is. Several hon. Members spoke of the necessity of considering the question of sheep dipping, and things of that kind. That is a matter which is not directly under my control, but I can assure the Committee that I am in the closest co-operation and consultation with the English
Board of Agriculture, and I trust that it will not be long before some definite decision is reached upon this somewhat difficult problem. The question of allotments was raised. The problem of allotments is undoubtedly one which is linked up with agriculture as a whole. A point was raised with regard to the £4,000 which has ceased to appear in the Estimates. That admits of a fairly simple explanation. This money was not available for the purpose of purchase or hiring of land, and it is quite clear that if the demand of those who are interested in the formation and improvement of allotments is to be met, some other means than that which was provided for by that sum will have to be taken. Even if that sum had been available, I consider that it is a totally inadequate amount to deal with a subject of that importance. Perhaps this is not the time to enter into that question, but I can assure hon. Members that I am not shutting my eyes to the importance of the matter.
Various hon. Members have drawn attention to the importance of silos. I feel sure that the experiments which are going on in putting up silos, particularly in the Western Isles, will amply repay the cost. I agree with the hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie) that the form of the silos is probably better underground than above it. That, at any rate, is the form which for the most part it takes. With regard to the reopening of various lime kilns, undoubtedly that is a question which must be investigated, but the Government, before entering upon expenditure of that nature, must be satisfied, first, as to the quality of the lime, and, secondly, as to the possibilities of working it with decent hope of return.
The hon. Baronet the Member for Argyllshire (Sir A. Sinclair) asked me about several schemes in which he is particularly interested, the Camster scheme and the scheme for a township in his constitutency. Both these cases the Board are investigating under, I am afraid, rather difficult circumstances. It may well be that some of these farms which are desired may be claimed as home farms. In that ease, they are ruled out by the law as it stands.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: Will the right hon. Gentleman carefully consider whether the claim can be resisted in law?

Sir J. GILMOUR: All the material facts will be taken into consideration. The hon. Baronet also raised a question about the purchase and resale of estates. He complained that when the Board purchased an estate and subsequently sold a portion of it, the price obtained for the sale went back to the Treasury. That is not the case. Supposing a sum of £20,000 is paid for an estate as a whole, and then £5,000 is realised as the price of land sold, that amount does not return to the Treasury, but is available for other purchases.
Several hon. Members raised the question of bracken. Undoubtedly, that is a problem of importance, not only in the Galloway district but in many other parts of Scotland. There have been investigations in regard to that, and that question in conjunction with the question of drainage must certainly receive careful consideration. I was asked why we were not supplying seed oats. All the facts having been taken into consideration, it was not thought that this was justifiable. Nor do I think, except in very special circumstances, that these grants can continue indefinitely. I think I have covered all the questions raised except that of transport. This is a matter of immense importance, because we cannot expect to have success on the part of land settlement schemes, nor of agriculture as a whole, unless we can secure for them reasonable freights and possibilities of sending their goods to market. These are all questions which are to be taken into consideration and reported upon, not only by the conference which is sitting in Edinburgh but by the Government as a whole.

Mr. WESTWOOD: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what he suggests can be done for closer co-operation between the Board of Agriculture and the Board of Education in relation to the agricultural education, and also what he proposes to do, if anything, to assist education authorities which are prepared to carry through experiments in connection with agricultural education?

Mr. MAXTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me whether the Committee he referred to in regard to the remuneration of staffs of agricultural colleges in Scotland was the Departmental Committee appointed on the 1st
February, 1924, under the Chairmanship of Lord Constable, of which the Under-Secretary for the Scottish Board of Health was a member, which Committee reported on the 12th September, 1924, and made many very valuable suggestions, particularly the suggestion contained in the reservation by the Under-Secretary of the Scottish Board of Health? As the right hon. Gentleman has had this Report since the 12th September last, cannot he very speedily deal with some of the more urgent points raised in the Report?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I can assure the hon. Member that I am giving most careful consideration to the report of Lord Constable's Committee not only on this particular matter but on the other matters raised in the Report, and I hope that we may be able to come to some conclusion before very long on these very important matters.

Mr. MAXTON: It is more speed than care I am anxious for.

Sir J. GILMOUR: You cannot have more speed than is consistent with reaching a sound conclusion. There a saying, "More haste, less speed." The hon. Member must give me a little, time to form my judgment upon this question. In regard to what the hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian and Peebles (Mr. Westwood) has said in regard to co-operation between the Board of Agriculture and the education authorities with regard to the agricultural colleges respecting agricultural education, more particularly in the rural areas, I am very much in sympathy with some of the efforts which are being made to bring agricultural education into close touch with secondary schools, thereby showing the people in the district what can be done in this matter. I think it would be well that we should have some sort of conference between the various Departments concerned before we embark upon a policy involving education authorities generally in agricultural administration. I have not the slightest doubt that there may be a solution found which will be satisfactory to both parties; but the best way would be to bring the Board of Agriculture and these colleges of agriculture and the education authorities into close touch in order to evolve a proper system.
May I say a few words in conclusion, about the composition of the Agricultural
Conference now sitting in Scotland. As is well known, His Majesty's Government desired to have the advice of all the representatives of agriculture in Scotland, and they invited them to form a conference. As regards the English Conference, that is outside my province. In the case of Scotland, I invited the cooperation of all the agricultural bodies in the formation of the Conference. I approached the representatives of the Farm Servants' Union, and asked them to nominate representatives. They told me that they were prepared to nominate representatives as soon as they were satisfied that it was to be a. representative Conference That offer has not, as hon. Members are aware, matured, and there are no direct representatives of the Farm Servants' Union sitting in that Conference. I had, unfortunately, much to my regret, to resort to what I decided was the right thing to do to bring to the Conference at least men who were working actually in agriculture, on farms and small holdings, and with knowledge although they are not there as representatives directly nominated by the Farm Servants' Union.

Mr. JOHNSTON: On this matter about which there is much feeling in Scotland, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman where he got the names? Who recommended to him the six men who are there presumably representing the farm servants?

Sir J. GILMOUR: As the hon. Member will understand, when Mr. Duncan, the head of the Farm Servants' Union, decided that he could not nominate representatives, for the reason that the Farmers' Union did not intend to nominate representatives, and working in conjunction with them he refused to take part in the Conference, I was faced either with abandoning the Conference, as was done in England, or through the officers of the Board of Agriculture in Scotland ascertaining as rapidly as possible, and from any source which was at my disposal, whether I could secure men who were actually working in the agricultural industry and were really genuine workers on the soil, and who could be liberated by their employers. I should like to say that when I discussed this question with Mr. Duncan he told me perfectly frankly that, while he might be able to nominate representatives of the Farm Servants'
Union to attend the Conference, he must not be tied to sending men who were really working on farms, because he could not guarantee that he could get them, as they might not be able to get off their work.
If there has been anything lost in the failure of Mr. Duncan to nominate, I beg to claim, I think with justice, that a
8.0 P.M.
great deal more perhaps has been gained by the fact that at any rate we have produced at this Conference workmen who are actually working in the industry and earning their living by that means. Be that as it may, at any rate we have to-day the satisfaction of feeling that there is in one room around a table a body of worthy representatives of the varying interests, and I am happy to say, having attended the first meeting of the Conference, I came away with the feeling that, having nominated the chairman among the tenant farmers of Scotland, who stood midway between the landowners and the workers, and that having been accepted by all sides, this Conference holds out the. prospect not only of submitting to the Government definite concrete proposals for dealing with agriculture, but, to my mind, what is of greater importance, that having in one room and in consultation all these varying interests will make them realise the various difficulties of the various classes whom they represent, and I am hopeful that their efforts will end in a Report which will be of value not only to the Government but to agriculture as a whole.

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: Even urban Members have a certain interest in this Vote. The interest which we have is particularly in reference to allotments. The reply of the right hon. Gentleman touching the £4,000, which was available under the Act of 1919, will be read with great disappointment by allotment holders in all parts of Scotland. Nobody doubts, least of all the right hon. Gentleman himself, the very great value of the allotments movement, not only as a social activity, but the allotments are very often a very real source of support to families who otherwise would not be able to make ends meet. It is amazing that although an Act passed in 1919 empowered the right hon. Gentleman to take £4,000 for encouraging and developing allotments not one penny of that money has been
taken by the Scottish Office for this purpose. The right hon. Gentleman says that the money is a small sum, but £20,000 has been available since the Act was passed, and none of it has been made useful for this purpose either by him or his predecessor. I am informed that it is the Law Officers who have advised that this Act does not apply. Of course legal opinion cannot be challenged by a layman, but it is an amazing thing, if this is the intention of Parliament. I am not saying that it may not be the correct interpretation of that Statute, but surely the intention of Parliament when it said that the money was to be taken for the encouragement and development and provision of allotments was that the money could be used in the way which has been asked for by the civic councils of Glasgow and Edinburgh for the purpose of aiding in the purchase of or paying the rent for these allotments.
Unfortunately, the enthusiasm which was shown for this cause during the War is being damped down, and in Edinburgh, and in Glasgow, too, I think, plots are being given up. I am told that 324 in Edinburgh alone were given up last year. Surely, the right hon. Gentleman does not want that to go on. He does not want the allotment movement to shrink, as may happen unless it is encouraged by these or some other means. The Edinburgh Civic Council find that in some cases the rent amounts to 25s. per annum for 240 square yards, which is a figure which the allotment holder cannot afford. I would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he should do more than brush this aside, as he did in the Debate this afternoon. It is impossible for him or for me to go into the matter of what legislative remedy might be provided, but I would suggest that he should look again at the Law Officers' opinion. He has got new Law Officers to-day, and he should see if they cannot advise him that this money is available, and if it is made available and is spent, none of it from the urban point of view can be better spent than in this way.

Mr. JAMES BROWN: I am sorry to intervene at the last moment of the Debate, but, representing a constituency which is largely agricultural as well as mining, with some urban population, I
must enter my protest against the poor results that have come from our agricultural legislation during the last six years. I remember under the Coalition Government, when we were discussing the Land Bills, how anxious everybody seemed then to be to provide small holdings for our people, but some years have passed since then, and it seems to me that there is less desire on the part of the Government now, and less pressure from outside to get those small holdings than there was. The hon. Member for Inverness (Sir M. Macdonald) was very anxious to get transport facilities. I am sure that he is not contented with the number of small holdings provided in his constituency or in the highlands and islands generally, but why confine ourselves to the highlands and islands? In the lowlands there are many people who desire to get small holdings. I can speak for one or two districts in Ayrshire which have been highly successful, and some encouragement ought to be given to the people who desire to settle on the land.
There was always a fear that there was not enough laud to go round. Probably there would not be when the Government was taking land, as it had to do, but I know that that is now past, and there are many estates in the market to-day which could easily be purchased by the Board of Agriculture or by the Government in order to settle many of our people on the land. Many of those men already have proved that it is not only beneficial to them to cultivate the land, but that it has proved remunerative as well. I think that Scotland has only dealt with about 4,000 persons altogether by placing them on the land. I wish that the Secretary for Scotland and the Under-Secretary for Health, the Board of Agriculture, and anybody who has any power to bring pressure to bear on the Government, would try to get them to see that 4,000 persons settled on the land is far too small a number for us to be satisfied with. They have settled over 33,000 people on the land in the Commonwealth of Australia. I agree that most of it may be virgin soil and that the work may be much easier to do, but 4,000 is far too small a number for Scotland.
I wish to protest against the inactivity that seems to have prevailed and to press on the Government the desirability of getting more people settled on the land, not only that persons may be benefited, but that the land may be cultivated. I
agree with what the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Leith said regarding allotments. Besides very large agricultural districts in my constituency, we have some forests also. In our mining districts during the War we had many allotments. To many of those men these allotments were a perfect godsend. Not to speak of the good which it did our country during the War, it gave them some kind of incentive in life after their day's work was over. Putting the people on the land gave them a certain amount of produce besides giving them a great deal of pleasure. I trust that the Secretary for Scotland will see to it that more small holdings will be granted and that every consideration which has been asked for will be given to the subject of allotments in Scotland.

Sir J. GILMOUR: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

CLASS VII.

SCOTTISTT BOARD OF HEALTH.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a stun, not exceeding £1,976,885, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1926. for the Salaries and Expenses of the Scottish Board or Health, including Grants and other Expenses in connection with Housing, Grants to Local Authorities, etc., Grants in respect of Benefits and Expenses of Administration under the National Health Insurance Act, 1924, and certain Grants-in-Aid."—[NOTE: £580,000 has been voted on account.]

Captain ELLIOT (Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health, Scotland): I feel in a somewhat difficult position in putting forward a review of what is after all a period in which my predecessor was responsible for the health and the housing of the people of Scotland. On the other hand I am emboldened by the fact that he in his turn last year was putting forward a review of the year in which I was responsible for the health and the housing of the people of Scotland. So we have the somewhat Gilbertian situation that each of us has had to defend the administration of the other, and criticise the things for which his predecessor in turn would become responsible. Such are the alternations involved in a continuous
series of general elections, which no doubt all of us hope have passed for a long period. Again, we have to pass and review the activities of a modern State presenting all the problems of one of the modern States. Although on a smaller scale, still, clearly and definitely, the great movements of 'the world are as definitely under consideration in the Scottish Estimates, as they are in the consideration of the annual accounts of the United States of America. We have just been discussing the agricultural estimates and the drift of the population from the land. We will now review the statistics of the modern industrial State hit with the full blast of industrial depression which has swept over the industrial States of Western Europe.
The industrial note which has to be sounded in considering the vital statistics of Scotland this year is that the country has been in very great difficulties. Hon. and right hon. Members opposite have their explanation and we on this side have ours, but at any rate the system is working with very great difficulty. We have in Scotland alone at present 181,000 people totally without work, living on relief—the insurance payments—and we have large numbers supported partially or wholly by the parish. The fear of one who is responsible for the health of a country in such conditions is that a long period of depression, and no doubt a certain degree of underfeeding which is involved in the breakdown, partial or complete, of an industrial system, will produce a corresponding depression in the health of the people, and that you will get lower vitality showing itself in the movement against us of the sickness curves. From that point of view I propose to examine the vital statistics of last year. There is the question of the efforts by the community towards betterment, which are still being maintained in suite of the depression, the efforts of the community towards improvement in housing, the greatest communal effort, perhaps, on which we are at present engaged That I wish to review, but only in its relation to the main question of how great is the depression which Scotland is labouring under, and what was the effect of that depression last year on the health of the people.
As to the size of the depression one can only say that there is a vast amount of
unemployment, somewhat greater than at this time last year. The total numbers in receipt of parish relief, however, are fewer than last year. This is largely due to the action of the previous Government in increasing benefits, and lengthening the periods during which they would come under the unemployment insurance system. This has undoubtedly been a great relief to the finances of the local authorities. The expenditure for the year ended 15th May, 1924, was £1,286,000. The expenditure for the 43 weeks from 16th May, 1924, to 14th March, 1925, is only £496,000. Obviously this decrease has been a great relief to the heavily drained local authorities. As to the destitute able-bodied unemployed who were relieved in the main industrial parishes, the average weekly number in 1922 was 46,000, in 1923 it was 45,000, and in 1924 it was 27,000, and during the first three months of 1925 it was 21,000. These figures show that both in expenditure and in the number of persons in receipt of relief, the extension of the central system of relief—that is what the uncovenanted benefit amounts to—has come as a relief to the local finances, which had almost reached breaking point. The effect of the recent circular from the Ministry of Labour, which may be brought under review as tending to increase the burden of the parishes, has not been as severe as was anticipated. The number of poor persons in receipt of relief on 15th February, 1925, was 21,157, and on 15th March, 1925, it was 21,602, so that the increase over all was less than 450. Those figures certainly came rather as a surprise to me, considering the prophecies that had been made about the effect of that circular.
I shall speak for a moment about the effects of recent Acts upon housing, giving a comparison of the housing position as affected by the Acts of the Unionist Government in 1923, and the Act of the last Government in 1924. Roughly speaking, under the private enterprise Clauses of the Act of 1923, we have at present plans approved for the erection of 6,349 houses. Of these, 1,500 have been completed, and 3,300 are under construction. By the local authorities we have proposals for 7,963 houses, but of these 1,700 have been transferred to the 1924 Act, so that we have now 6,215 still approved by the local authorities under the Act of 1923. In
addition, under the slum clearance section, we have so far 7,061 houses which are to be dealt with. We have thus something like 19,000 houses under the various sections of the Act of 1923. Under the Act of 1924, which is, of course, only in its initial stages, we have so far 5,388 houses approved and in addition 1,748 houses transferred from the Act of 1923. So that we have in all 7,136 houses which are approved or going ahead under the Act of 1924. Therefore, between the two Acts we have 19,000 under the Act of 1923, and 7,000 under the Act of 1924, which brings us to 26,000 houses approved and under construction up to the present. Those are the relative figures. I shall be glad to give any further figures which hon. Members desire to have.
It is the intention of the Secretary for Scotland to press on the provision of houses by whatever Act can be made to yield them. On these figures, I do not think it can be said that there has been the slightest reluctance to make the utmost use of the Act of 1924. The housing of the people of Scotland is far too important a thing for us to allow it to be held up by any suggestion of favouring one Act as against another. Consequently, we have not merely a large number of new houses approved under that Act, but 1,700 houses transferred from a previous Act to this Act of last year. In one thing we may be subject to criticism. The Secretary for Scotland has approved a certain number of houses of two rooms. That shows the desire of the present administration to work this Act to the utmost and to make sure that everything it can produce is extracted. I will give one case in point. A local authority came to us and said that they had had previously in mind the provision of 500 houses. Under the standard adopted by our predecessors they would have required 375 of three rooms, and the balance of two rooms. They heard that we were willing to negotiate with them on the subject, and they came forward with a proposal for 1,000 houses. We have got from those 1,000 houses, 400 with more than two rooms—that is to say, more houses of that type than would have been produced by our predecessors, and, in addition, 600 two-roomed houses.
That obviously is a great increase to the housing in that part of Scotland. When you find the responsible local authority putting forward their claims, and saying
that these are the houses which are required to meet the demands of the people who are to live in them, then any Government Department is bound to consider very seriously such claims. All the more is it bound to do so when, as I have shown, it means, not merely an increase in the number of houses as a whole, but actually an increase in the number of three roomed houses over that which we have produced by any other plan. Politics apart, nothing would have been easier than for us to suppress completely the Act of 1924 by refusing permission to build two-roomed houses under it, but it would have led to a complete hold-up of the housing proposals of that Act. We could have suppressed the Act of my predecessor in Scotland not merely without any objection from hon. Gentlemen opposite, but with their enthusiastic approval.

Mr. JAMES STEWART: What is the superficial area of these houses?

Captain ELLIOT: Not one of the authorities has asked for any reduction in the superficial area. It is merely a question of whether there is to be a partition or not. There has been no request that special powers should be brought into play to reduce the area necessary under the statutory provisions

Mr. STEWART: They will be 500 feet?

Captain ELLIOT: None of them less and there will be varying sizes over that, as far as I know. None of them suggest that they want a reduction in size.

Mr. MAXTON: Does that apply to county or to burgh authorities?

Captain ELLIOT: This particular authority was a district committee of the county, but we have also been approached by burghs which return Labour Members with proposals for a much larger percentage of two-roomed houses than we subsequently agreed to.

Mr. MAXTON: Are they not prohibitionists?

Captain ELLIOT: Not only prohibitionists but eminent gentlemen such as the hon. Gentleman seated immediately below my interlocutor (Mr. Rosslyn Mitchell). Into the vexed questions which hang upon the new methods of construction I do not propose to enter. They are under consideration by a Committee of Inquiry, and we can leave them
to be thrashed out at a later stage, only saying this—that not for any new method of construction is it proposed to sanction anything less than three rooms. No two-roomed houses will appear in any scheme brought forward in connection with a new method of construction.
The public health record last year was unsatisfactory. The vital statistics moved against us. Two years ago, when reviewing the public health record, I chose three sections to represent the situation, namely, the return of adult sickness as reflected in the statistics under the Insurance Act; child welfare, as represented in infantile mortality, and the community resistance to disease, as measured by the figures of deaths from tuberculosis. It seemed to me that upon these three factors we could get the bearings which would enable us to gain a fairly accurate estimate of our position. The main fact stands out that the year previous, which was the healthiest year on record in Scotland, was not repeated last year. We find that the death-rate, which had been 12.9 per 1,000, moved up to 14.4 per 1,000 for 1924. Infantile mortality, which had been 79 in the previous year moved up to 98, and the sickness statistics moved against us also, the insurance returns showing a rise of from 15 per cent to 20 per cent. all over. That leaves only one of the three bearings which I then discussed, namely, tuberculosis, and it is interesting to note that although the general death-rate moved against us the tuberculosis death-rate did not. The statistics, in that respect, were as favourable as, or slightly more favourable than, those of the year before.
What is the reason for the movement of the vital statistics against us? Agriculture has been mentioned here this evening as an all-important subject and many things are discussed in this House as being all-important, but this is literally a question of life or death, and on this question the whole of our social structure is bound to turn. I investigated the cause of the movement of the returns as far as I could, and it seems that in Scotland at any rate they have moved against us owing to an epidemic of influenza in the early part of the year. The general position is not as bad as it appears from the figures which I have just quoted. Undoubtedly anyone looking at the figures would say: "The winter of unemploy-
ment is beginning to tell and the lowered vitality of the people is reflected in the increase of disease. The long depression is producing the looked-for effect." The investigations which I have been able to carry out do not quite bear out that view. Any of us would expect an increase in sickness, and if anyone had said some years ago that such a period of industrial depression could pass over without greatly increased sickness we would not have believed it. The figures in connection with the child welfare schemes have moved against us. The figures of infantile mortality, which were the lowest on record in the year in which I had control of the public health, moved up by something like 20 per cent. in the year following. I do not claim for a moment any special credit in this respect. As my predecessor said, there is no reason to suppose that these movements will not be subject to numerous variations. The general fall which has taken place in infantile mortality is, in Scotland at all events, subject to repeated variations. One of those variations my predecessor was unfortunate enough to encounter, but I do say that our claim to a faithful stewardship is not rendered any less because the statistics were better in our time.

Mr. MAXTON: But the hon. and gallant Gentleman will agree that his party's claim to a faithful stewardship would be affected if it were shown that in the middle of rising statistics they took away facilities for care.

Captain ELLIOT: In the middle of rising statistics?

Mr. MAXTON: If, when the statistics were going against you, you were definitely responsible for removing child welfare schemes or depreciating their value.

Captain ELLIOT: If such an accusation could be truthfully brought against me, then no doubt that would to some extent be a subject for criticism, but I claim that the movement for increased facilities which was carried on by my predecessor was initiated by us. The grant of £10,000 for the treatment of measles was passed by us; the food and milk grants were doubled by us; this increase, we by no means intend to stop. In the
present Estimates the proposal for the treatment of pneumonia and bronchitis was brought forward by us. But we claim it is not possible to discuss this subject on the narrow basis of party from year to year. This broad movement must be surveyed as a whole. The infantile mortality increase seems to have been due largely to epidemics of various kinds, and as a matter of fact we find in regard to the epidemic that the death-rate in the first quarter, which was 132 in the year under review, is 109 in the current quarter of this year. That, at any rate, is an encouraging figure. I do not think we shall have the healthiest year on record, but I hope, as we all hope, that the figures will not be so severe as they were in the previous year. As for adult sickness, I think hon. Members opposite had better remind me of my rationing, otherwise I might be trespassing too long on the time of the Committee. The person with official statistics tends to overlap into the time of private Members, and always has done.
The adult sickness is from 15 to 20 per cent. up. That holds in Scotland; it also holds in England. You might say these two countries are both affected by the great unemployment wave, but I find that the vital statistics moved in the wrong direction also in France, which is not subject to any unemployment depression at the present time, and they also moved slightly adversely in Denmark, a country which has been under discussion in the earlier part of the evening, so that, for some reason or other, oddly enough, a wave of ill-health passed across Western Europe. The returns moved seriously against us in Scotland, something like 1.5: to a lesser extent in England, something like 0.6: to a slightly lesser extent in France, about 0.3; and to a less but still appreciable extent in Denmark, something like 0.1. The very interesting speculation arises as to what it was that caused the simultaneous movement of the vital statistics in the wrong direction all over the West of Europe. Some people say it was the sunless summer. I do not know. Certainly the expense of drugs went up tremendously in Scotland. It went up over 25 per cent.; it went up £40,000 above the average requirements of the preceding four sears, and what that was due to, I do not know.
Infantile mortality has moved up, but the indications are for the first quarter
of this year that it has fallen again. Sickness has gone up very seriously, as is instanced in the insured population. It has gone up 15 to 20 per cent. The use of drugs has gone up by £40,000, and the amount paid out in benefits has also gone up. Tuberculosis, on the other hand, remains stationary, or has slightly fallen. I have mentioned one or two of the steps that we are taking to ameliorate the condition of the people—the measles grant, the new grant for pneumonia and bronchitis, the investigations of one kind or another. Take the cause, for instance, of infective jaundice, which caused considerable anxiety amongst the mining population in the East and was subject to a good deal of question and answer in this House. The organism of infective jaundice has been discovered. it seems that it is not, as we had previously considered, largely a miners' disease, but it also occurs amongst members of the general community, and the Circulars which were sent out calling attention to it have resulted in the diagnosis, as due to this infective jaundice, of several conditions which were previously put down to some state of ill-health following influenza. Oddly enough, the same thing appears in dogs, where the jaundice following an infection by this organism is apparently paralleled by a similar condition which has been previously put down in dogs to a post-distemper reaction. Apparently it is a disease of rats, to which dogs are also subject, and to which human beings are also subject, and that it is not merely an industrial disease, but a disease of which there are a certain number of cases amongst the rank and file of the population. We have made it notifiable in Scotland.
It is not possible for me to review the many things which I should like to have considered. The progress, for instance, in the salvage work amongst the local authorities is an extremely interesting and, I think, quite a novel development The burgh of Falkirk has been able by installing a grinding plant and dealing with its salvage to produce 28 per cent. of the whole of the electric light consumed by the burgh out of its refuse, which shows a degree of waste more than one would have expected in the thrifty people of Falkirk. The revenue derived from the salvage of refuse since the
scheme started is about £2,800, which has gone a long way to reduce the cost of the cleansing department, and Glasgow and other places are examining this further. It is merely an example of the all-embracing survey which one has to give, in considering the activities of the Board of Health, that it is necessary to commend the Burgh of Falkirk for recovering 30 per cent. of the cinders from its refuse at the same time as one praises the investigators of the Medical Research Council for having discovered the par. titular organism which produces infective jaundice.
The whole question of the movement of the population, which has been referred to in a previous Debate, is of vital interest to those who are concerned with public health. The emigration figure of 40,000 that was given is a considerable under-statement. The figure is really very much higher than that. These are the figures given by the Overseas Department, but the figures given by the Registrar for Scotland show that in 1923–24 emigration was 69,000 and immigration 9,000, that is, 60,000 of a net loss. The excess of births over deaths was 40,000, so that on those figures there were 20,000 fewer people in Scotland at the end of the year than there were at the beginning. A country which has 60,000 people going overseas, a country with 181,000 people unemployed, a country with 70,000 able-bodied people and their dependants on the parish, is a country whose labour market is certainly in a very unhealthy condition, and it is a country which should consider seriously whether it really can continue to afford the openings which it previously has afforded to all the people who desire to come- into it from overseas.

Mr. ROSSLYN MITCHELL: What does the hon. and gallant Gentleman mean by "overseas"?

Captain ELLIOT: I mean over seas.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: Not over the border, from England?

Captain ELLIOT: We are all glad to see the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) back again. We do not enter into a discussion with him, because that may lead him into illegal paths.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: That does not say much for your great House of Commons, or your Chairman either while he sits there.

Captain ELLIOT: The difficulty in discussing the Scottish vital statistics is that we cannot get the people fully to understand how enormously important they are to the life of the community. It is not generally recognised that when we talk about the declining population of France, for instance, it is not due to the low birthrate but to the high death-rate. In 1923 there were more children born in France than in England and Wales. The natural increase was very much smaller, because of the death-rate in France, which is 17.3, as against the death-rate in England and Wales, which is something in the nature of 12. Real national policy is determined by the medical officers of health and the other people who work out the amount of the new population who are going to survive. If the French took to the selling of their 75 mm. guns, and the buying of drain-pipes from Paisley, they would be a much more formidable nation from the imperial point of view than they are at present. We have these things to discuss and form an opinion upon in the few minutes of Debate, and it is almost impossible for us to give them full appreciation. The difficulty of getting the ordinary Member of Parliament, or, still more, the ordinary elector, to understand that everything hangs upon the health of the people is almost insuperable. I have done my best to put it briefly before the House, and I trust that in the discussion which is to follow we shall have this important matter thoroughly discussed and the salient facts properly brought out.

Mr. J. STEWART: I think every Member who has been in the Committee has been deeply interested in the speech that we have just heard from the Under-Secretary for Health, and I regret that the benches in the House should be so empty. When I look below the Gangway, and discover that there is not a single representative of that great party which is so deeply interested in the welfare of the people, it gives me food for thought. And when I look on the other side, and see that the majority of Members who represent that great party in Scotland are also conspicuous by their absence, in a matter most vital to Scotland, I wonder what is wrong. It cannot be that the
speech was at fault, because I am certain a more interesting speech it has not been my lot to listen to from any Member of the House on this particular question. There are some points that want elucidating—at least I think so. I want to know what the Secretary for Scotland purposes doing with regard to the ever-increasing cost in the building of houses. In 1923, in Glasgow, a house cost £370. By July last year the cost had increased to £430, and by October of last year to £473. The grant that we get from the State under the Wheatley Act is £9 10s. The £103 added on to the 1923 cost must more than wipe out that £9 10s. It means at least an additional £10 per annum to the rent. So that the £9 10s. has entirely disappeared into the pocket of some individual or individuals, and I do hope we shall hear some statement with regard to what is proposed to be done to overcome this ever-growing difficulty, to use a polite word, though I should like to use a stronger word, but will leave it at that.
The blame may not be entirely on the contractors. It may be they have excuses. In March last year bricks were selling at 42s. The bricklayers of the country made a definite promise that the price of bricks would not rise, but, despite that promise, by some means or other the price of bricks continued to rise, until before the end of the year they were 52s, per 1,000. In 1914 these same people were content, and seemingly made a profit, when bricks stood at 20s. The price has gone up more than 150 per cent. between 1914 and 1924. Under the proposals of the late Government, it was decided that a Bill should be introduced that would prevent this profiteering. That has not been done, and the Government have made no alternative proposals with regard to dealing with this question, so that for building materials of every kind, whether bricks, wood, or light castings—whatever it may be—the price is gradually ascending. They have made no suggestions to cope with this question. Last year I was under the painful necessity, because of the ever-increasing price, to refuse to allow contracts to proceed, and I should like very much for someone to tell us what their proposals are to deal with this particular evil that must of necessity affect the building of houses.
I am sorry the Under-Secretary did not deal more with the question of alterna-
tive houses. The one alternative house that is most prominently before the minds of the country is the Weir house. We have recently had a Report with regard to the Weir house presented by responsible people, engineers in connection with the local authorities of Scotland, and they have come unanimously to the conclusion that the Weir houses at the prices that have obtained, that is, practically the prices of to-day, are more costly for erection than brick houses, not making allowance for the fact that, of necessity, there must be more money spent on the maintenance of these so-called steel houses in the way of painting. Then, as to the period of their life, there is doubt as to whether they will last even 20 years, or 30 years, and I think the maximum life that has been given to these houses by experts is something like 30 years. Alternative proposals of that kind, I am sorry to say—and I say it with real sorrow—have failed us in Scotland in this matter of housing.
I turn to a most important matter, and that is the question of the action of the Government in regard to reducing the standard of houses that was fixed by their predecessors. In Scotland we bad a committee sitting for some years. They reported about 1917. It was not. a committee composed of agitators, like some of my hon. Friends on this side of the House. It was made up of business men, men with some scientific knowledge in regard to housing, and men with medical knowledge. Their Report was entirely against the erection of what are known in Scotland as two-room houses. There was a Minority Report as well as a Majority Report, but the great majority were absolutely against any further building of houses of that kind: the minority were only slightly less favourable. We have now reached the stage when we are going back on those proposals. There is a proposal, as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary has said, for building 1,000 houses in a part of Lanarkshire by one of the councils there. Of that 1,000 houses that the council is going to build, 400 only are to be three-room houses, and 600 of the two-room type. Why! there is no Member of this House, not one of the Scottish Members, who has not deplored the standard of housing that exists in Scotland. They know that it is inadequate. They know
that it is injurious to health. They know that, while for the moment we may be spending a little less money and letting houses at a little less rent, the cost must ultimately be paid.
There are 1,000,037 houses in Scotland. Of that number 548,000 are one and two-room houses. That is to say, that 52 per cent. of the houses in Scotland to-day are either of a one or two-room type, and 48 per cent. of the population live under those conditions. The result, as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary has very well pointed out, is that we have the highest death-rate in the British Isles; of infantile mortality; of the general death-rate, and everything in that direction. The highest sickness rate of any part of the British Isles obtains in that great country of Scotland. We do not escape the expenditure. We have got to spend the money in sanatoria, in hospitals, and in the economic loss occasioned by men who are lying sick, so that we gain no advantage whatever in that direction. You have reduced the standard of the houses. Let me give an illustration of what is taking place, as I have done before on the few occasions on which I have addressed the House, by using my own city. It is not by any means the worst, though it is the largest. In other parts of Lanarkshire, Linlithgowshire, and Stirlingshire you get these conditions; here they are actually worse than what they are in Glasgow.
9.0 P.M.
Quite recently the medical officer of health for Glasgow published a Report dealing with this very subject. In that Report he condemns root-and-branch the building of any more two-room houses. He points out that there are 40,000 houses in Glasgow—slightly under, but I give it in round figures—in which there are living more than three persons to a room. The standard anywhere is two per room in Scotland. It is not apparently considered injurious that there should be more than three in each room. This represents a population of not less than 140,000 people living in overcrowded conditions that are inimical to their health. No wonder the Parliamentary Under-Secretary spends nearly three-quarters of a million of money co health administration. That is 1s. in the pound, regardless of the fact that we get Fifty-Fifty, and that a great deal of our expenditure comes from the State. I would beg the Secretary for Scotland and
the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, when they go into these questions, to see if they cannot reconsider this matter of the lowering of the standard of houses in Scotland. It is true that there are a number of people on the local authorities who think that their duty is to act in the way they are doing, and to use the old argument, which we have heard before, that the people must live near their work and that the people cannot afford to pay the rent suggested. It is not true that the people must live near their work. As a matter of fact, they do not at present live near their work. In the vicinity of Glasgow they travel from Bridgeton to Dalmuir, to Paisley, and to Dumbarton in the course of following their employment. This takes them to the Fairfield Works and to the Singer Manufacturing Company's Works. It is not true that they need to live near their work and, as a matter of fact, they do not. They follow their work, and do not necessarily live near it. I hope that as a result of our discussion here this evening that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary will, even at this late hour, reconsider the position and force the various localities to take some steps to raise the standard of housing in Scotland. He, as well as myself, believes, I think, and with the same intensity as I do, that the low standard of housing in Scotland is the one blot, the worst blot of all, upon our nation. The hon. and gallant Gentleman can, in his capacity and in the position that he has the honour to occupy for the time being, use his influence and force to far greater effect than I could, because the people who govern the various localities throughout the country are much more in sympathy with his point of view than they were with mine. If he will act in that way, and use his influence to point out that money is not being saved by the authorities but ultimately lost, then what he says will undoubtedly have a great effect.
There is another thing I want to mention, the employment of direct labour. Those hon. Members who read the "Glasgow Herald" will perhaps have lead the report of recent proceedings in Glasgow City Council. There a discussion took place in regard to the employment of direct labour in housing. One of the members, Bailie Welsh, made a
plea on behalf of direct labour, not wholly because of the economy, but because they would get houses more speedily erected under that system. He was opposed by members of the so-called Moderate party, but the convenor of the Housing Committee, Bailie Welsh, traversing the figures of Bailie Morton, said that they had saved upon one housing scheme to the extent of £200 per house. It was stated then that that was not strictly correct, for the actual saving was £180 per house. That means £17 difference in rent. What we get from the State aria the contribution by the local authorities represents £13 10s. How is it not in the interest of the State? Are you not going to save money if you can produce these louses cheaper? I might say in passing in regard to that, that not only were these houses built cheaper, taking them at £186, but they were admittedly superior houses, so far as construction, workmanship and finish were concerned than houses of similar design built under private contract. That has not been denied, and so I would beg the hon. and gallant Gentleman to use his influence, where he can, to save the money of the State and of the community by urging on local authorities to try the other method if they cannot by private enterprise get houses at prices commensurate with the rents which must be charged. This problem of housing transcends every other problem. Everything else he has spoken of hinges upon it. Bad housing, had health; bad housing, waste of money: bad housing, a lowering of the standard of life in every direction. I ask the hon. Member to give effect to what I have been urging.
One remark to which I wish to draw attention was concerned with the lower vitality of the people. A statement was made to us by the Minister of War, within the last fortnight I think, that in the course of recruiting it was found that out of every eight men who offered themselves five had to be rejected. If that be true of the country as a whole, how much more is it true of the district the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Parliamentary Under-Secretary represents, and of the division that I have the honour to represent? Stunted men, stunted women, rickety children, and disease of every kind predominate, and if it is desired to do something to tackle that situation, we ought to help forward
the building of houses. We ought to remove the disgrace attaching to the fact that, despite having had housing schemes since 1919 we have not, up to now, built sufficient houses to meet one year's requirements, and the prospects, instead of improving, are diminishing.
Here is a great problem and a great opportunity, and I would ask the Minister to use the sympathy that I know he has, and the intelligence that I know he has, to deal with it in a way that will make for the benefit of our people in every direction. It will pay us in the physical benefits that it will confer, and it will pay us from the moral standard, it will increase the intelligence of the people, and perhaps it might have this effect—the Clyde and the Clyde district might not be quite as red as they are if you were wise enough to adopt the course that I suggest.

Mr. KIDD: We have listened to an interesting speech from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health. The hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Rollox (Mr. Stewart), himself a former Under-Secretary, seemed to be rather troubled about the question of two-room houses. I entirely agree with him, as everybody must, that we ought to have more accommodation than is represented by two rooms. On the other hand, he will be the first to agree that there are many cases where a two-room house does serve. If the family is large, then more than two rooms are called for, because one does not wish to have any mixture of the sexes, one does not want to have children brought up under conditions where there is a want of regard for delicacy; but he will realise that there must be many cases where the two-room house is very much more attractive and much more satisfactory to the occupant. In any case, in a time of stress like the present I think the Under-Secretary did well, not on his own judgment, not expressing his own mind, as I understood him, to defer to the wishes of the local authorities on that particular point. If in a time of stress the Board of Health and the local authorities found themselves in conflict, the objective sought by the Labour party in particular would not be realised as quickly as if the Board of Health were in happy accord with the local authori-
ties. The Member for St. Rollox made reference to profiteering. One does not want to go into this matter of profiteering, because one would need to examine ail the constituent contributions to the price, and might raise controversy with Members opposite, and one wants to avoid that.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Oh, no! Why not?

Mr. KIDD: Take the cost of the timber in a house. The price of that may not be fixed by people in this country. Take the wages arising from the material having to be sent here. The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) might find himself in conflict with me on some of these matters, and we want to avoid that. What we want is houses, not controversy. I suggest to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary that the best way of avoiding profiteering is to leave the building industry alone. The more it is left alone by the Government the less profiteering there will be, the cheaper building you will have, the more houses and the better houses. If I came out as a social enthusiast wanting more houses and better houses in the shortest possible time, I would on every occasion beg of the authorities to keep the hand of the Government, either the central government or the delegated government, out of industry.
I was very much interested in the remarks of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary with reference to vital statistics. I like his frankness, and I like his analysis, and I like what I thought was his very fair deductions. He was perfectly frank in stating that the vital statistics are against us. Without being dogmatic, he warned the Committee not to jump to the conclusion that our people are now beginning to show the effects of the unhappy industrial conditions under which they have lived, and which we all deplore. He justified that warning, I think, by the reference he made to tuberculosis. I am sure every Member of the Committee was delighted to learn that not only had the figures under that particular head not increased, but that they were either stationary or tending to diminish. It would be presumptuous on my part to pretend to be a judge on this medical point, as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary can be, but it does appear to me that the situation as to tuberculosis can perhaps be accepted as a test of whether our people have
suffered from this long-sustained unemployment, or whether the fact 'of the vital statistics going against us are not to be explained by some other cause. The Under-Secretary was frank in stating that the vital statistics were against us. He was encouraging to us in letting us know how tuberculosis stood, and the information he was able to give in regard to tuberculosis seemed to me to prove his point that, whatever it was that might be the explanation of the bad curve in the vital statistics, it applied also to Denmark, to England, to France and to Scotland. These facts, taken together with the further facts as to the position with regard to tuberculosis, seem to bear out the view of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary that we could not account for the adverse position of the vital statistics simply by the state of unemployment.
Having said all that, it seems almost unkind that I should raise any point against the Scottish Board of Health, but I will not do so in any captious spirit. I hear, however, that the Scottish Board of Health are a little slack in paying their debts. Of course, we are all Scotsmen, and we have a common feeling on a point of this kind. I hold no brief for any particular creditor of the Board of Health, but I ask the Under-Secretary to keep this point before him. If a builder happens to have an accumulation of balances which restrict his ability to get on with his work very much indeed, I beg of the Under-Secretary to see to it that builders in that position are not allowed to remain without their money any longer than is at all possible, and immediately the Department is satisfied that the work has been done in a satisfactory way after examination the money should be paid at the earliest possible moment. It may be that other hon. Members have had a similar experience to that which I have had in my own constituency as to the liability of the parish council, a liability from which they cannot escape, but which with the assistance of the Minister of Health they might escape. I am alluding to the case of a man in my constituency who deserted his wife. The desertion has lasted for quite a number of years. The parish council have paid hundreds of pounds for the maintenance of the wife and children of this man. Now this man
who has deserted his wife and family is attached to a certain Approved Society, and he moves about in a very mysterious way. Under these circumstances the parish council ask the Minister of Health to direct the Approved Society to give them this man's address, but they refuse to do so. In a case of desertion of this kind where the money is being paid by a public authority, and where the debt represents the burden upon the ratepayers, we are not asking the Minister of Health to act, as a detective agent, but that Department ought not to act as aiders and abetters in something approaching a crime. This is an actual instance which has occurred in my own county, and I believe other Scottish Members have had similar experiences. I would ask the Under-Secretary to see if he can in some way deal with a deserter who leaves the burden of his wife and children to be borne by the parish council.

Mr. R. MITCHELL: If in the earlier part of this Debate the Secretary for Scotland has suffered from undue criticism I am afraid the Under-Secretary for Health is very liable to suffer from undue adulation. The hon. and gallant Gentleman has presented to us this evening a statement ranging over a very wide field of the various activities of his Department. I want to confine my remarks to one item in the Estimates. In the first place we heard a good deal about the treatment of tuberculosis, and I am surprised to find that while £290,000 is set aside for the purpose of the treatment of tuberculosis cases, there is no reference to any sum for the purpose of taking steps to prevent tuberculosis. I am still more surprised to think that at this time there should be an attempted reduction in the amount of money set aside for grappling with this terrific problem. I have chosen this subject, not because I have any expert knowledge upon it but because I happen to have been present in another capacity at the beginning of the campaign against tuberculosis in Glasgow along with the late Under-Secretary for Health for Scotland, and we have seen it grow from its very early beginnings. We have seen what can be done by local authorities in the treatment of patients, and what can be done by a local authority if it is given substantial funds to eradicate these nests of disease. I am sorry to say that we
have seen very little reference in these Estimates to anything being done towards the prevention of the ever-recurring numbers who suffer from this disease. As a matter of fact, there is actually a decrease of £20,000. I believe that if the hon. and gallant Gentleman would only transmute as he can these dead figures in these Estimates into terms of human suffering and anxiety that he would not ask the Committee to sanction a reduction of £20,000 for the treatment of tuberculosis, and he would be willing to ask for a grant on very much the same lines as last year. This disease has been tackled from its early beginnings, and every year there has been an increase in expenditure for this object, and this has always been attended by a corresponding increase in the effectiveness of the treatment. Why, then, should there be a reduction of £20,000 in this Estimate?

Captain ELLIOT: It might save discussion if I answer that point at once. The reduction which has been alluded to is owing to over-budgeting last year. There is really no reduction at all in the amount to be spent, and the balance for last year cannot be used this year.

Mr. MITCHELL: Then I understand, although I am not highly skilled in these technical matters of Parliament, that the balance cannot be used in the subsequent year. Very well, if the balance from last year cannot be used, how is it there still remains a reduction in this year's Estimates of £20,000? Even granting that the same amount is to be available, I would plead with the hon. and gallant Gentleman to recognise that this must by its very nature be an ever-increasing expenditure until you pass over the apex and feel you have actually grappled with the problem. It is not a question of figures of accidents involving a limb or portion of a limb, it is a, thing which goes right down to the very roots of civic administration of crowded life in cities. It is the biggest social challenge we have. Cholera and smallpox have been practically eradicated. It is only two generations ago since ecclesiastics were telling the people that cholera and smallpox were specially sent by an all-loving Father to draw the attention of the victims to their sins. Sanitation has developed enormously; money has been expended, and the result is that even in our crowded cities cholera has been eradi-
cated and smallpox practically eliminated. I believe we can do the same with tuberculosis, and the experience of the last 14 years shows it can be done if we have the social courage to grapple with the problem. Anything that has been done up to now is trifling. Judged intensively, I admit it seems a great deal, but judged extensively according to the enormous seriousness of the problem, it is trifling. We actually are dealing only with the existing victims, and what money we expend in trying to cure existing victims will be, spent again next year for the purpose of curing the next set of victims who are now being sent out into the world. Tuberculosis has been called a disease of sunlessness. Undoubtedly it is a disease of sleeplessness, and if you have housing conditions in which children, to whom sleep is the most essential thing of existence, instead of having sleep by which they can make good the wastage of their bodies—[An HON. MEMBER:" Why did you vote for Summer Time?"]—for thousands of children it is better that they should be breathing the air of the streets than the rooms in which they have to sleep. So long as you have houses in which children have to pass the night in semi-asphyxiation because the air is already polluted by those who have inhabited the room, instead of being invigorated by pure air you will have an increasing tendency to attack by this disease.
We refer to Glasgow because we know it better. We Glasgow folk are very fond of criticising our own town. We seem to love her so well that we know she will not be offended by pointing out her faults. Since my stay in London I have seen in this great, boasting city areas which for sheer street filth and housing conditions would not be tolerated even in the city of Glasgow. I confess that my experience during the last few weeks has been rather to mollify my criticisms of my own city after what I have seen in the surroundings of this great place. But this disease is a disease of poverty. The well-to-do person in a good house first of all has not the same tendency, or if he has the tendency he is protected by the size of his house and the locality. If he is infected, he is able to go to the country or to be isolated and receive treatment in his house and all that skill and science can provide for him. The
poor begin handicapped. They begin from early days in an atmosphere which reduces their vitality and power to resist disease. When they have the disease they are so crowded together that they cannot be isolated. When they are sent out and cured, there is no after treatment available for them. There is practically at present no surgical treatment available except the voluntary hospitals. When they are cured, but still liable to recurrence of the trouble, they are sent back to crowded, congested homes to be the generators of new disease among those who live with them and, at last, to fall back to the position in which they were.
Glasgow statistics show definitely that this is a disease of poverty. For example, we have all heard about two-thirds of Glasgow's population in houses of one and two rooms. Thirteen per cent. of the people live in single ends and have provided 18 per cent. of the consumption cases in Glasgow. Sixteen per cent. of the population of Glasgow live in houses of four rooms and over. They provide only 8 per cent. of the phthisical cases. Now that it is a notifiable disease, we know definitely about those cases. What you have is this. Those people who live in houses of four apartments and over, while providing a larger ratio of the population, nevertheless provide less than a hall of the phthisical cases of the smaller proportion of the population which lives in single apartments. Moreover, the ordinary normal death-rate of people living in four-apartment houses is only 50 per cent. of the people who live in single apartments. Is that not a terrible thing? Here in a great city, after 19 centuries of the Christian outlook on things, we are content to regard a population so divided that the people who are in a certain material circumstance know that they have twice the chance of life that their brothers and sisters have who are on a lower material plane. That, to me, is a most terrible thing. It is a most awful challenge to every particle of our statesmanship, our humanitarianism, our humanity and our religion, whatever it may be.
When you come to phthisis you find the death rate in four apartments and over is only 36 compared with 100. The
folk in this House are pretty well-to-do. Where can their happiness in their own material prosperity be, when they know that their fellows are put under such handicaps as these? Further, the expectation of life, in males living in one-apartment houses, is, at 10 years of age, 47, while for males in four-apartment houses it is 53. In the case of women it is even worse. Poverty is a terrible burden to womenfolk. In the case of the woman in a one-apartment house it is 46 years, while it is 58 years in a four-apartment house. The whole thing is a question of poverty. The whole of the housing question is a question of poverty. Why does the hon. and gallant Gentleman, who, from his youth up, has held, in the estimation of his fellow-citizens in Glasgow and the West of Scotland, so high a place, not only for his mental ability, but for the sure touch of his instinct—why is it that, at a time like this, when house-building is not keeping pace with the marriage rate, he cannot bring his party, which has an unprecedented majority in, this House and a practically unanimous House in the other place, to grapple with the problem of providing for every human unit at least the minimum that he and I know is absolutely essential for the physical, mental, and moral development of our own children?
That is the test of statesmanship—not to give driblets, but to lay down the minimum that we ourselves know is essential for our children, and then to see that our statesmanship shall not end until, for every child that is born into this nation, there shall be at least that minimum provided. How can he allow, at this moment, landlords to stand in the way of building houses? Why should he allow the makers of material to stand in the way of building houses? Why should he allow the holders of money to stand in the way of building houses? Why should he allow trade unions to stand in the way of building houses? [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Directly I mention trade unions, every hon. Member opposite cheers. That is the only section of vested interests with which hon. Gentlemen opposite have attempted to grapple. They have allowed, and we have allowed, to our sin and shame, the land of the people, upon which they all depend for existence, to be taken from them and monopolised by a few, who withhold it from them in order
that they may extract more from the people. We have allowed the people to be fed with adulterated food; we have allowed people to make profits out of every need of the poor. We have never hesitated, even in the methods of moving them from place to place, to go and buy land at exorbitant rates, and build roads at the expense of the people, and then see the edges of the road rise in value from £5to £250. We have used the poor always—

The CHAIRMAN: I do not see how the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health can have any control over those matters.

Mr. MITCHELL: I am sorry if I have departed from the line. Everything that we do in connection with tuberculosis—all our X-Ray treatment, all our heliotherapy, all our sanatoria, all our centres—what are they doing? They are simply providing temporary palliatives against a great, malign influence which is at work so long as we allow the people of our country to be housed as they are. There are people in the City of Glasgow whom the hon. and gallant Gentleman's Department permits to live in houses which his Department would not allow to be used for the breeding of pigs. The local authority of the City of Glasgow, under directions from the hon. and gallant Gentleman's Department, is more strict with the houses in which people will breed pigs than it is with the houses in which men and women are to breed new men and women to be citizens of this State. I ask him, therefore, not to reduce the tuberculosis grant, but to increase it, so that there may be methods of dealing with the disease surgically, methods of dealing with the disease in children—we have nothing now but the voluntary hospitals—methods whereby people may be taken and sent, not from Scotland into the villages of this country, but to villages and centres in their own land, methods whereby there may be after-treatment, methods whereby there may be a period of isolation, methods whereby the economic circumstances that drive the victims back to their homes before they are properly cured, may be relieved by supplementary grants.
I do beg this of the hon. and gallant Gentleman for the sake of his great party, which has received the vote of con-
fidence of the people. No Government can come into power in this country save by the votes of the poor people and the artisan people. It is perfectly obvious that the Conservative party in the House of Commons has received their faith. They have believed in that side of the House; they have not believed in us; we have not received their faith as other hon. Gentlemen have. But it is a terrible thing to receive that faith from poor folk, because it implies a tremendous responsibility, and it is a horrible thing to cheat anybody. It is a terrible thing to deceive anybody who has put trust in you; but it is immeasurably worse to deceive poor folk who, in their misery and helplessness, have given their faith to a great party because that great party has promised to do something to alleviate their suffering. I am disappointed, in looking at these Estimates, to find so little being done in Scotland in this matter of tuberculosis prevention, and so little for child welfare. My only glimmer of encouragement comes from the preceding page, where I find
Grants towards Housing Expenses, £1,040,500.
That is a preventive which does not recur. The rest comes on year by year, as we know in Glasgow so well, for we spend about 1,500,000 every year in mopping up the mess that is caused by bad social conditions. I hope the hon. and gallant Gentleman will be as gallant in his statesmanship as he had been in another sphere.

Dr. DRUMMOND SHIELS: I should like to associate myself with those who have expressed appreciation of the Under-Secretary's statement at the beginning of our sitting. He brought forward very many interesting facts, and it is difficult, in the short time which, by a self-denying ordinance, the members of this party have imposed upon themselves, to go over anything like the ground which he has covered. I propose to speak rather on one or two technical points, on which I should like to ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman for some information. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. R. Mitchell) has spoken about tuberculosis, and tuberculosis is, undoubtedly, one of the greatest diseases that we have to fight. I am sure we were all gratified to know that statistics show that the
death-rate was not any more severe last year than in previous years, but I am afraid we cannot find much upon which to congratulate ourselves in regard to the general incidence of the disease.
I should like to ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman whether he has given any consideration to the introduction of the Spahlinger treatment. We are in a very unfortunate position as regards any real cure—any real cure for pulmonary tuberculosis. It is practically a matter of nursing and hygienic treatment at the present time. In this Spahlinger treatment we have at least a very real hope. With some other medical Members of the House I saw a number of cases treated with the new serum and vaccine last week in London and I was very much impressed by them. I know there are very great difficulties in the way at present, but I would ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman to encourage his Department to co-operate with the Ministry of Health in endeavouring to get some method of having this treatment given to sufferers, because we want to get something done. I do not think we should wait until the treatment is finally and absolutely guaranteed to cure. We should be prepared to see if we cannot assist in determining whether or not it is an effective remedy, which I believe it is. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley spoke also about other forms of tuberculosis than pulmonary. I should like to ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman if he will encourage in this connection treatment by helio-therapy. I think the light treatment of tuberculosis is going to be very important, especially in regard to what is called surgical tuberculosis, which includes practically all other forms than those associated with the lungs. In the city hospital at Edinburgh there is now installed a light treatment, and it is proving very effective. I hope the Board will encourage other centres to instal this form of artificial sunlight.
I should also like to call attention to a somewhat neglected form of tuberculosis, that is lupus, or tuberculosis of the skin. It is a very terrible form of the disease, which commonly affects young women, most frequently in the face, and, if it is not checked, it creates a tragedy which is much worse than death. The light
treatment of skin tuberculosis has been developed to a very great extent in London. We in Scotland have been rather behind in this matter. There is now a modification of the Finsen light installation at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, and the Board of Health would do a very useful work in encouraging local authorities to see that this method of treating this terrible form of the disease is encouraged.
The subject of tuberculous milk is one hi which I am very much interested. Is it not a terrible thing that at this time of day we are actually having milk sold which little children have to consume and which contains live tubercle bacilli? Recently in Edinburgh 403 samples of milk were taken, and 33 of them, or 8.1 per cent., were found to contain live tubercle bacilli, and the figures in other towns are very similar. About 8 per cent. of tuberculous milk is being circulated. The tuberculosis officer for Edinburgh, giving the figures for 1922, says that 30 per cent. of all gland cases, 18 per cent. of all meningial cases, 50 per cent. of all abdominal tuberculosis cases, 58 per cent, of cases of tuberculosis of bones and joints, and 50 per cent. of lupus cases were due to the bovine bacillus, which is practically always transmitted through milk. This shows the very great importance of the subject. I am glad the Board of Health in Scotland has realised its importance, and I want to emphasise the matter now so that they may be encouraged to bring in at the very earliest moment the Tuberculosis Order of 1914. They have the power to do that on 1st September of this year, and I think it is their present intention, but I hope nothing will prevent their doing that in association with the reintroduction of the English Order of 1915, by the Ministry of Health, because it is a very serious state of things that we should be having this milk circulated. The grading system which was introduced by the Ministry of Health was very useful, because it called attention to the fact that milk was not all of the same quality, but the effect has been that the ungraded milk is now of a poorer and more dangerous quality than the average milk before the grading system was introduced. It is a cheaper milk, and it is given to the very poorest and least resistant of children. Therefore
it is high time that the circulation of tuberculous milk should be brought to an end.

Sir HENRY CRAIK: To what extent does the medical profession agree that tuberculous milk is really responsible for tuberculosis?

Dr. SHIELS: The bovine tubercle, which is almost entirely transmitted through milk, does not cause pulmonary tuberculosis. It does not affect the lungs but it may cause any other of the various forms I have mentioned, which are very often called by the general term of surgical tuberculosis.

Sir H. CRAIK: To what extent does the medical profession think it is really responsible for tuberculosis?

Dr. SHIELS: I have already given the figures. I think if the right hon. Gentleman will look at the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow, ho will see that I have given, from the Report of the Edinburgh Medical Officer of Health, the proportion of tuberculosis due to the bovine tubercle.
I should like to refer to the rather unpleasant subject of venereal diseases. I wish to ask if anything has been done to carry out the recommendations of the local authorities whom the hon. and gallant Gentleman received in a deputation in July, 1923, with a view to giving more power to local authorities to deal with this subject. Probably legislation would be requred for drastic treatment, and that cannot be discussed now, but there are possibilities in connection with the 1897 Act whereby these diseases might be scheduled. I should like to call attention to the seriousness of the problem. In the year ending May, 1923, the total attendances at the clinics in Scotland were 289,945, involving 22,800 people. These do not, of course, cover all the cases. I would ask also if the new centres, which have been frequently asked for, have, been opened, and especially if anything has been done in regard to the seaports, which are known to require special treatment. Another point in connection with these diseases is the importance of securing the attendance of patients until they are finally cured. It is, of course, a very delicate and difficult subject, and it is not easy to find a solution. The treatment of venereal disease, however, is a very great expense to the community,
and during the year 1922–23 30 per cent. of those under treatment left before the full course was completed, 23 per cent. had completed the course but left before they were finally tested, and 39 per cent. only remained until the treatment was completed and until they were finally pronounced cured. That means that a great deal of the very expensive treatment given to these people is more or less thrown away. It is a difficult problem, but I think the Board of Health, by following up these absent cases and assisting the local authorities to follow them up, might do something in the interests of the patients of the general community and, ultimately, of economy, until we have new legislation embodying the least objectionable method of compulsion. Twelve per cent. of the cases of syphillis are congenital, and these are largely cases of children—the most pathetic cases of all. I would like to ask the hon. and gallant Member if his Department ever look into the question of trying, if possible, to have separate accommodation for the children. It is very desirable that the children who come for treatment should not mix with the adults. In many centres there is not that separation which we would wish. We would desire that these children should not know that they were attending that particular section of any institution. In most cases of venereal disease a final cure can be secured, and, fortunately, we generally get that for the children.
I would like to call attention in connection with the same unpleasant subject to the cases of Ophthalmia Neonatorum. It is disappointing to find from the weekly health returns that these cases are frequently occurring. It is well known that they need not occur. The treatment for prevention is extremely simple, and in many cases on the birth of a child this prophylactic treatment is given as a routine in institutions and by private practitioners. I am aware that the Board has taken disciplinary action against certain Poor Law officers where this disease has occurred and I would like to ask whether any steps have been taken when the notification of this disease has come in private cases, to trace the circumstances and see whether negligence has occurred
We know that a great proportion of the blindness in this country is clue to this disease, and it is very desirable, when it is entirely preventable, that the Board should be a little more stringent, and see that intimation of it does not appear in our weekly health statistics.
With regard to maternity mortality, I should like to ask whether the Under-Secretary has any comments to make on the report of the Departmental Committee which sat on this subject, and which completed its work last year. We have a relatively high maternal mortality in Scotland, and we should be glad to know whether he has any comment to make on the Report of the Committee.
In regard to infantile mortality, we have not the figures for last year, but the previous year gives the very strange result that Aberdeen has the heaviest mortality of any city in Scotland. It is one of the curiosities of statistics, because there does not seem any good reason why Aberdeen should be in this unenviable position. The mortality figures were, for the year 1923, 104 in Aberdeen, 98 in Dundee, 90 in Glasgow and 82 in Edinburgh. The higher rate in Dundee has generally been ascribed to the number of married women who work in factories, while the housing conditions in Glasgow account for the high infant mortality in that city. Between 30 and 40 per cent. of the cases of infantile mortality are due to premature birth and congenital debility, that is, the child is born too soon or in a weakly and miserable state. That is practically always due to the condition of the mother. These two causes are the most important of the causes of infantile mortality, and the condition of the mother before the child is born is thus of fundamental importance. There, again, we see the influence of housing conditions. The mother has to remain in the house all day, sometimes up three or four stairs, she is in a bad atmosphere, not well fed, and very much overworked.
I should like also in that connection to ask about child welfare and antenatal centres. In many towns in Scotland these centres are not properly accommodated. They are far too crowded, and the conditions are such that the women very often are not encouraged to attend. I should like to see the Board
insisting on local authorities giving a little more attention to that matter. What has happened rather is that the Board has refused to sanction the opening and extension of these centres in many cases. It is very false economy for the Board of Health to have to refuse sanction to open or to extend these centres on any ground of economy. It is very bad economy to save expense in this way.
I should like to deal with many other questions, but I am afraid I have exceeded my allotted time, and I do not
10.0 P.m.
wish to be selfish and take up the time of others. I should like before closing, however, to ask the Under-Secretary a question with regard to the £10,000 allotted with respect to measles. What has been done with it? Has the whole amount been spent, or how much has been spent? With regard also to the nutrition of school children, I find that, in the year 1923, 16,200 children were officialy certified as having a state of nutrition below the average, and 600 were certified as having very poor nutrition. The hope was expressed that if the financial condition of the country improved, these figures would improve. Has the financial condition of the country improved, and, if so, has there been any reflex in regard to these school children? I would like to ask also whether the country has ever been in a financial position sufficient to justify practically 17,000 children being underfed and half-starved. I do not think that has ever been justified, and I certainly think that a proper Government is one which would allow no financial situation to justify the neglect of children, and the causing of them to suffer cruelly by our economic and social system.

Mr. W. M. WATSON: This is one of the rare occasions when we have an opportunity of discussing problems which directly affect our country. To-night we have been discussing two of the most important problems, agriculture and public health, which vitally affect Scotland. The statements that have been made have shown that we require to make much more rapid progress in the future than we have been making in the past. The Under-Secretary gave us a most interesting statement in regard to the public health of Scotland. That statement is not what we would like it to be, I am satisfied that he has not given us
in that statement all the information that he might give us He attributed the increase in sickness that has taken place during the past year very largely to the epidemic of influenza, but I believe that if the problem was sifted to the bottom, he would discover that there are a few other causes operating in Scotland, which have been operating for a considerable number of years, and which are very largely responsible for the amount of sickness there is in that country. These two causes are housing and tuberculosis and other diseases which are brought on by a considerable amount of unemployment. The hon. and gallant Member referred to the unemployment existing in Scotland and hinted that it might have some effect upon public health. I am certain that the prolonged period of unemployment in Scotland has had an influence on the health in Scotland, and between unemployment and bad housing we have two prolific causes of bad public health.
This is also an occasion on which many Members get an opportunity of airing grievances which are peculiar to their own constituencies, and I want to bring to the notice of the hon. and gallant Gentleman a condition of affairs existing in my constituency of which he has a good deal of knowledge himself. I refer to the housing conditions at Rosyth. They are not the ordinary conditions which prevail in various parts of the country. Before I deal with what is known as the garden city, I wish to refer to the conditions existing in what is known as bungalow city, Rosyth. It is not exactly what I should call a bungalow city. It was described by the Under-Secretary for the Scottish Board of Health as a collection of ramshackle edifices. It was constructed to house the navvies who came to construct the dockyard at Rosyth. I believe that these houses had been used in another part. of the country and were brought to Rosyth to house the workers there. From the beginning it was understood that they were to be merely temporary shelters and that as rapidly as possible they would disappear. It is true that we have not as many to-day as we have had, but there are still considerably over two hundred of these tin structures standing Just outside the dockyard gates, a condition of affairs which is not creditable either to the Scottish Board of Health or to the Admiralty.
The Admiralty, I believe, in the first instance, was responsible for these houses being erected, and I believe that the Admiralty to a very large extent is responsible for their continued existence. But the Scottish Board of Health has some right to look after the welfare and the health of those who are condemned to live in these particular houses. The Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health visited these structures two years ago, and I hope that he has not forgotten the impression that was made upon him. He expressed his feelings at a meeting at which I was present on the same day, and he had nothing very creditable to say for those particular houses. Is it the intention of his Department to proceed with the erection of new houses at Rosyth, so that these tin houses may be got rid of? At the annual meeting of the Scottish National Housing Company, the chairman stated that he understood that 50 new houses were to be erected at Rosyth, and I would like to know if there is any hope that new houses will be constructed so that these tin shanties may be got rid of, and, if so, is there any intention to experiment with housing at Rosyth? I notice that in the speech to which I have already referred, by the chairman of the National Scottish Housing Company, it was stated that there was a likelihood of two-apartment houses being erected at Rosyth, and not only that, but that there were to be experiments with certain materials so that houses could be erected at lower prices than those which have ruled at Rosyth up to the present. Are we to have some of the Weir houses for example? I hope we are not going to have steel houses erected at Rosyth to take the place of these houses that have been left.
I would remind the Under-Secretary that when he spoke at Dunfermline, following his visit to Rosyth, he expressed the feeling that he was most uncomfortable. He had a sort of responsibility as a Scotsman and as an official of the Scottish Board of Health for the manner in which the workers at Rosyth had been housed, and he reminded us at that meeting that in England they had a higher standard of housing than we have had in Scotland, and he felt that it was unreasonable to ask workers to come from southern dockyards to Rosyth and to put them into houses such as he had seen at bungalow city that day. I would
remind him that we who are interested in Rosyth do not wish to see the standard lowered in the case of the new houses. The permanent houses which have been erected at the garden city are houses of more than two apartments. They have three, four and five apartments, and I hope that, if it is the intention of the Scottish Board of Health to sanction the erection of more houses, we are not going to have two-apartment houses erected there. I hope that we are going to maintain the standard which has been set up in the garden city.
There are one or two other matters to which I wish to refer. The Secretary for Scotland was not long in his place when I had to draw his attention to a number of grievances at Rosyth—grievances on the part of tenants who have had some difficulty with the factors of the Scottish Housing Company. There is a very close connection between the Scottish Board of Health and the Scottish National Housing Company. The Board of Health, acting for the Admiralty, has to find the money for the erection of the houses at Rosyth, or, at any rate, the bulk of the money. The Board of Health has advanced to the Scottish National Housing Company over £900,000 for the erection of houses at Rosyth, so that the Board has a very direct connection and interest in the housing conditions at Rosyth. I suggest that if the Secretary for Scotland has any influence with the company, something like a Whitley Council might be set up in connection with the housing, just as there is a Council inside the dockyard for dealing with grievances there. I do not see why the right hon. Gentleman should be pestered from time to time with grievances connected with housing at Rosyth when there could be set up a committee of representatives of the Housing Company and of the tenants which could discuss difficulties from time to time.
There is no reason why there should be any more friction at Rosyth than elsewhere, except this—that the houses at Rosyth were erected during the War, and that they were not constructed as houses used formerly to be constructed in Scot land. In the first place, there is not accommodation equal to that which we used to have in our houses with the same number of apartments. If you compare
the three-apartment house at Rosyth with the two-apartment house that used to be erected by private enterprise, you find that there is more actual accommodation in the two-apartment house than in the three-apartment house at Rosyth and elsewhere. In the ordinary three-apartment house before the War you had actually mote accommodation than you have in the five-apartment houses erected during the War and since. During the War, I believe during 1917 and 1918, we had 1,000 houses rushed up at Rosyth in order to find accommodation for the men who were being brought from the southern dockyards, and I am convinced that a considerable amount of jerry-building went on at Rosyth, with the result that from time to time there are disputes between the tenants and the factor of the Housing Company about troubles in connection with the housing. I want to ask whether something cannot be done to overcome these grievances.
I wish to refer also to another matter which I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consider sympathetically, and that is the question of the rents. I am aware that these houses have been subsidised and that subsidies were inevitable. If you require to subsidise houses that are built now in the circumstances of the moment, there was much more justification for subsidising houses during the period of the War. I want to remind the Secretary for Scotland that these houses were built during the War. Under the first development scheme undertaken at Rosyth houses were built at something in the neighbourhood of £300, but before the end of 1918 the cost of building the same type of house had increased to £1,200 and £1,300. Those were quite abnormal conditions, and there is no reason why the rents which have been fixed for the houses should be continued at their present high rate. I consider that rents of £18, £20 or £22 for three-apartment houses or of over £40 for five-apartment houses—which is the rent of the newest houses—is far too much. These are points to which I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give consideration, and I hope he will try to help this hard-hit community. During the period of the War wages were high, and things were going well, but there have been reductions in the wages of dockyard workers just as in other wages, with the
result that these people are not able to pay the high rents which have been fixed at Rosyth. I also wish to draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that the burgh authorities of Dunfermline have undertaken a great many services at the instigation of the Admiralty, and I hope he will do something to assist them to get over some of their present difficulties. Representations have been made to his Department in connection with works undertaken by the town council, and I hope they will receive his most sympathetic consideration.

Brigadier-General CHARTERIS: I wish to refer to the same subject as that with which the previous speaker has dealt. I desire to call attention to the question of housing, both in the rural areas and in the great cities. Regarding the rural areas, I think the Secretary for Scotland might direct his attention to the question of whether or not it is possible to ease the existing congestion in the rural areas by causing such corporations as the great railways to provide houses for their own employés. In one portion of my own constituency there is no doubt that the railways by not housing their employés are causing congestion. Not only are they unprepared to take this step on their own initiative but they have not accepted an offer which was made to them of free land and other facilities. They use the argument, and there is something to be said for it, that their employés, in common with all other citizens, are entitled to take advantage of the existing houses. But when we realise the difficulties of house-building and the fact that these railways and other corporations have facilities for locating their men with due convenience in regard to their work, and have also facilities for the rapid execution of the work, then I think pressure might be brought to bear upon them to take this step and to help on the general interest of rural houses. I do not enter into the relative merits of the 1923 and 1924 Acts, except to say that in so far as Scotland is concerned, neither Act appears to have been capable of causing Scotland to exert her full force in the matter of housing. The proportion of houses which Scotland has built in comparison with England is, of course, low, and the result is as unpleasant to hon. Members on this side
of the House as to hon. Members on the other side, in that the Scottish taxpayer is paying a proportion of taxes which goes to his greatly respected English brethren across the Border.

Mr. MAXTON: But we beat them last Saturday.

Brigadier-General CHARTERIS: les, and if hon. Members opposite co-operate, we can equal if not beat them in every friendly contest. I think the Secretary for Scotland should endeavour to see if that matter cannot be put right. I am told that whereas England has built or sanctioned over 241,000 houses, Scotland's figure is only 12,000. That is a rather deplorable' result, and if the right hon. Gentleman, were to devote his attention to finding some means of meeting that problem, we might find Scotland playing a part more worthy of her in the effort to solve the national housing problem.
I now ask the Committee to consider for a moment the question of town planning. The present tendency is to devote the whole effort of government to meeting congestion and to solving the housing problem apart from the actual congestion by building one-storey or two-storey houses of the bungalow type. That is not the whole solution. Of course it is a ready palliative for some Bart of the evil, but I feel sure that in the great cities, in the great industrial areas, there is a very definite limit to the extent to which this means can be used. It seems to me that it is not practical politics to put the members of an industrial community all out in the suburbs at a distance from their work and from the amenities of life to which they are accustomed, and I believe that the Secretary for Scotland would do well to devote his attention to the problem of whether, in some measure anyhow, these difficulties could not be met by greatly improved—so greatly improved that they would hardly be recognised—steel tenement dwellings running up to many storeys.
I understand that the Minister of Health in England has sanctioned a plan of the London County Council to build a nine-storey block of flats in St. Pancras, and I believe the figure that works out there for a housing unit, in the sense of the same accommodation as is provided in the
ordinary Weir bungalow, comes to something not far from £160, in comparison with the Weir bungalow figure of £350, I believe that a similar type of house, if built in the great cities of Scotland, and particularly in Glasgow, would be the readiest and most effective way of meeting the congestion which now exists in that city. I do not believe that these great tenements need require brick in their construction. Of course, the framework is of steel, and even if the filling is not concrete, because that might require too much expert labour, I believe that by using stamped steel, such as is used in some of the smaller bungalows, in the walls of these great tenements round the steel framework, we should get a tenement building rapidly constructed, affording good and ample accommodation for the people, and get it much more readily and conveniently placed than is possible with bungalows erected on the Weir system.

Mr. STEPHEN: Has the hon. and gallant Member ever stayed in a tenement building such as that?

Brigadier-General CHARTERIS: I have never been in Heaven, but I am allowed to discuss it. You decry these buildings as tenements in Glasgow. In London we search for them and pay high rents for them as flats—even mansion flats.
There is another point which I think might be worthy of consideration, in regard to the congestion in Glasgow. It would be interesting if one could trace how far that congestion is due to causes within the city itself and how far it is due to immigration. I think the Secretary for Scotland might possibly have very interesting statistics prepared to see how far the immigration, for instance, from Ireland, is causing congestion in Glasgow, and it seems to me to be a question well worthy of consideration whether, in view of the great congestion in Glasgow, it might not be possible to take some steps to prevent the undue immigration, anyhow so long as the housing problem continues in its present condition. There remains the problem in what are not actually the rural and not actually the big industrial centres
—I mean the smaller towns in Scotland. There are in those smaller towns many slum areas which are a positive disgrace to Scotland and to civilisation, and I believe that steps could and should be taken to force local authorities there to meet the problem which is in front of them with greater energy and greater self-reliance than they have done up to the present. I have heard the suggestion made that the authorities should be taken in hand and ordered to fulfil a certain quota of building. I do not consider that practical, but I believe that if the Secretary for Scotland brought pressure to bear on those local authorities, municipalities, and burgh councils, they would be prepared to do much more than they are doing at present. This problem of housing is, to my mind, the one which most closely affects the welfare of Scotland, and I think that something more is required to meet the problem as it exists to-day.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: When the question of increased costs in the construction of houses was presented so ably by the hon. and gallant Gentleman's predecessor in office, the hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. Stewart), he was answered, to some extent, by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Kidd) making the proposition that the best way to advance the question of keeping down the costs was to have no interference at all with the building trade. Now more than one section of the Press within recent years has devoted specialised articles, and presented therein very telling facts concerning trusts that undoubtedly have sought specially to profit by the fact that the Government has been subsidising these houses. One of the cases quite recently brought under the notice of the Minister of Health was that of the Light Castings' Association. He replied that it would have his attention, but we showed that, under the articles and conditions of that organisation, it was specifically laid down that there was to be a restriction of output. There was a substantial advance in prices even before the anticipated rise of wages had taken place. We have heard nothing further on that, and the hon. and gallant Member to-night, in presenting his statement, which, otherwise, we all recognise was of the utmost importance, it was very noticeable that that phase of it was not dealt with.
Another aspect that has received some particular consideration in this Debate, as on a previous occasion, is the matter of dwellings with one and two rooms. The "raising of the standard" is the phraseology with which we are familiar in this House. We can all theoretically endorse the idea that a one or two-roomed dwelling is not by any means what ought to be provided, but it is only one of those remarkable conditions which fit in with the situation generally recounted by the hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. R. Mitchell), and the fact that stares us in the face is the inability of these poor people to find the rent that is asked for, and the desirability of these people, according to their own view, to be near the works where they are employed. Glasgow, I admit, on the latter point has, perhaps, a different situation to face, but Dundee is certainly in the category of including the two points, and let it be once more stated here, so that there shall be no misunderstanding, that, so far as Dundee was concerned, not only were the two Members returned from Dundee about two years ago. [An HON. MEMBER: "Not now!"]—I am not saying now, but that two Members from Dundee were definitely committed to support the call of the Dundee Town Council, containing a large body of Labour Members, also committed, and the Labour Member himself was the convenor of the Housing Committee who came here specifically to ask for, and obtain, an interview of the Minister of Health, and to recount the unchallengeable facts, which no one here was able to dispute, concerning the city of Dundee. I want to make that clear. It was because of the Labour men on the Dundee City Council. I do not suppose that any man in the council, for that matter, have any objection to raising the standard to the ideal. We want to see to that. But you have this peculiar situation—and this is one of the important points that have had to be brought up, and that must not be forgotten now: that these poor people have already been contributing to subsidising the people who were in far better circumstances, and who unfortunately got preferential treatment as to these houses which ought to have been made avaliable for the poorer people.
You get, then, a situation such as this in Dundee. It is a point which strengthens what I am driving at now,
than even when preparations had been made by a very energetic city council for the transfer of a number of these people who occupied the area which is commonly known as the Blue Mountains—the blue aspect of it is the fact of a number of public houses being next door to each other—and that is a point which the hon. Member for Paisley, who generally speaks on this particular question, did not mention in the detailed programme which he put forward—when we are trying to transfer these people over to the better houses, that at this very moment the Council has this difficulty: that those people cannot afford to pay for even the two-room houses which are now being made available. There is this also peculiar situation: that the other folk now who are able to pay are making applications, and cannot at the moment get the houses because they are really intended to meet the requirements of the people in that specially congested locality. These are the facts about Dundee, and the representatives of Edinburgh and the other cities have been able to speak on the circumstances obtaining there.
When the hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. R. Mitchell) was speaking he was told by the Chairman that he was going beyond the scope of our dealing with matters to-night. But when the hon. Member for one of the Divisions of Edinburgh was dealing with the question of diseases, being one of the medical fraternity, in the course of his remarks he brought out several diseases. I think we are entitled just to push that to some little extent, and I think I would be perfectly in order in respect to this matter. We hear a lot about housing the people. With all due credit for giving that question attention, I want to submit—and I think it is appropriate that it should come from this side of the House, and I would have expected it to be emphasised before now—that housing is not a root question, it is a branch question. If you are going to deal with root questions concerning diseases, and the awful conditions that are prevalent in our industrial cities, in places like Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee, you have got to face some of these political factors, of powerful, selfish interests which the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister has undertaken to cut his way through. I hope he
is going to tackle it, because there is no settling of the housing question unless that is done.
The Report of the Royal Commission on Venereal Disease shows the linking-up of that question with another aspect of the matter to which I have referred in connection with that particular locality of Dundee. If you are to deal with that matter in a thoroughly aggressive fashion on the lines of the Member for Paisley, you have the biggest job that any party in this country can tackle, and none of them up to now have had the courage to face it. It is one of the biggest questions we have to deal with, and it is painful to sit here and listen to Members recounting this, that and the other thing and leaving out this particular point. Here there is a specific means of demoralising and brutalising people and of wasting their wages, which, God knows! are miserably poor, and any such money going into the Exchequer for the upkeep of the country is being obtained, as money from this source is at a cost of three or four times its worth to the country. No matter who may be the right hon. Gentleman sitting on the Treasury Bench, you will never get this housing question solved until you deal with this other problem in thorough-going fashion. In one locality you will find a family so circumstanced that it would seem as though little or no money were going into the house, when as a matter of fact there is £3 or £4 a week going in; and in the same tenement you will find people occupying an apartment of the same size with a clean and tidy home and every provision made for themselves. You can have the finest houses you can make in a locality—one-room or two-room or three-room houses—transformed into slums, as some of them are being transformed into slums, owing to the state of affairs that I am trying now to drive home to the attention of the Committee.

Mr. STUART: One aspect of the housing question I would like to refer to, because it has not been dealt with to any great extent, is housing in rural areas. In the case of a housing scheme for a large city, a site is bought and preparations are made to build so many houses to the acre, but in rural areas the houses are more scattered, and the costs of building
them are necessarily so much higher. For this reason I think it is important to remind the Minister that there must be many houses, or shells of houses, which, with a certain expenditure of money, could be re-equipped and remodelled and brought up to date. If assistance could be given towards improvements of the nature such as I have suggested then a great deal might be done to remove the difficulties which occur in regard to rural housing at the present time. I also wish to refer to the grants towards the cost of demonstration houses which are made to the local authorities including county councils towards expenses incurred in providing houses illustrating new methods of construction. For that purpose the sum of £7,000 has been allotted. I cannot help thinking, with only that sum at their disposal, it will not be possible to give assistance towards erecting very many of these houses, and I should like to know whether a sufficient number of demonstration houses are going to be erected in rural areas.
I sin not sure that when this money is sub-divided it will supply a sufficient sum to erect demonstration houses at the rate of one for every county. It is very important, if any real progress is to be made with these alternative methods of construction, that every opportunity should be given to the rural as well as to urban areas in order to give every assistance to all those who are interested to see these houses. I hope that the county councils of Scotland are being encouraged to take steps to erect demonstration houses. This is a matter which should not be left to the county councils to take the initiative, but they should be urged to do their duty in this respect, and do all they can to improve housing because of the terrible conditions which exist in many parts of the country, and particularly in the rural areas which I trust will not be overlooked

Captain ELLIOT: After the very friendly tone of the Debate this afternoon, perhaps it may seem very rash for me to get up again. Having succeeded in my previous remarks in extracting encomiums from both sides of the Committee, I am reminded of the saying that it would indeed be a rash man who, "having escaped from the Cave of the Cyclops, goes back for his hat." Let me see what can be done in reply to the various questions which have been raised, in the short
time at my disposal. My predecessor in office, in one of those speeches with which he interests the House from time to time, expressed very pointedly the difficulties he felt in consenting to what he, called a lowering of the standard of housing in any way. I can only repeat that I do not consider the building of a new house is a lowering of the standard of housing, or the building of a house is the lowering of accommodation.
The fact that there are 40,000 houses in Glasgow with more than three people to a room seems an overwhelming argument that we should build more houses, and build all the houses we can get through the local authorities, rather than say to them, "We must get such and such accommodation." An hon. Member below the Gangway, who was a colleague of mine, put this question into his Election address. I also find the local authorities putting the case forward, and deputations coming from local authorities containing a large number of labour representatives, introduced by stalwarts like the late Member for Dundee (Mr. Morel), and the senior Member for Dundee (Mr. Scrymgeour). It seems to me it would be carrying bureaucracy to a ridiculous extent if I said I should refuse to carry out their wishes when such efforts have resulted in getting in one single instance 50 houses more, in addition to 600 of a smaller type.
On the other question which my hon. predecessor put as to the price which, undoubtedly, is showing a tendency to harden against us, that is due to a variety of causes. As he himself said, prices rose even during the time his Government were in power, although he had succeeded in getting a promise that materials would be on sale at the original price. The rise of prices was greater during the period of his administration than it was during the earlier period of ours. I think the only way in which one could 'deal with that is not by passing more laws, but by getting more stuff, more material, more labour, a great range of alternative methods and alternative materials for construction. I cannot believe that by passing laws in this country it is really possible to control prices of material without bringing back Government control at every stage and instant of the process. The only thing we can do at
present is—as the late Minister of Health has determined to do and as the previous Under-Secretary had determined to do—namely, to do our best not to sanction houses at those high prices, and to press on the opening up of new brickyards, the reinforcing of the labour ranks by the-apprenticeship scheme devised by him which we are doing our utmost to work, and also by bringing into play alternative devices. These do have the effect, at any rate, of producing an alternative which brings into play economic forces as against mere political forces.
Another of my predecessors, the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Kidd) brought forward a, case where he said that the Department aided and abetted the wife deserter to escape the proper consequences of his crime. I can only say that the question of obtaining addresses through the approved societies is a question of high Cabinet policy. Hon. Members might not believe me when I say this. They may think it is a new device of an Under-Secretary to escape inconvenient questions. But I do assure the Committee that the question of finding people through the insurance scheme is a, question which was settled by the Liberal Government when it brought the Insurance Acts first into play, and could not be reversed without the decision of at least two Ministers and probably the whole Cabinet itself, and great as are the evils which flow from the one wife deserter in Linlithgow. I fear that the Cabinet would not, thank me for adding another problem to those they have to consider.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Is that the practice generally, when names are asked for? Are they refused in other cases, as well as to parish councils?

Captain ELLIOT: We have to refuse. These are confidential matters, and it is-not possible to enter upon a policy of revealing information which has been given in confidence, whoever it might be that asked for it. The hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. R. Mitchell) in an eloquent speech, was, I think, a little led away by the fact that there was an apparent reduction in the Vote with regard to tuberculosis. That, as I pointed out at the time, and I should like to stress it now, is merely a question of closer budgeting. There is no reduction what-
ever in the amount that is to be spent. The hon. Member suggests that more money should be spent, but I would remind him that in this matter we have to go hand in hand with the local authorities, and it is only possible for us to progress in so far as we find ourselves able to meet a corresponding advance on their side. We are fully alive to the importance of this question, and certainly no reduction in the facilities for the treatment of tuberculosis would ever be sanctioned by me in so far as anything I could possibly say could oppose it. The hon. Member's suggestions could not be followed out solely by administrative action, but would also require legislative action, and, therefore, I am afraid it would be out of order for the Committee now to deal with that question.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for East Edinburgh (Dr. Shiels) brought forward a number of interesting technical points for discussion, in particular the question of treatment of tuberculosis by light—helio-herapy—and the Finsen treatment for lupus. On the question of treatment by light, we have two officers of the Board investigating the matter at present. The whole subject of the use of light rays in the treatment of disease is one of the most fascinating and stimulating subjects that can possibly be conceived, and certainly we shall do our best to see that it is thoroughly explored, and that the full advantages of it are taken for our country of Scotland.
The question of the grievances of the tenants at Rosyth were, as the hon. Member who referred to them will recollect, investigated by a Committee set up in the time of my predecessor. That Committee came to the conclusion that the terms of tenancy there were fair and reasonable. We have difficulty in dealing with the bungalow houses—with what is known, in more colloquial language, as "Tin-town"—at Rosyth, for the same reason that has been mentioned by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dundee (Mr. Scrymgeour). The question of getting the rent is so difficult for these poor people that, if you provide them with a cheap house, it is almost impossible to get them out of it. The difficulty of getting people out of "Tin-town" into other houses is simply and solely, not that we do not
provide the other houses, but that, when they are provided, the people resist by every means in their power any attempt to get them out of their tin bungalows into ordinary houses. However, these 50 houses have been sanctioned, and they will be built, and we hope to build them by various methods, so as to make sure that they can be let at rents which poor people can pay for them.
I am afraid I am not able to touch upon the subjects which have been raised by hon. Members on my own side of the Committee, because, owing to the progress of the Debate, I was rather later in rising than I had intended, and even then I am afraid I cut out one hon. Member who was anxious to speak. I am sorry on that account, and I hope the Committee will forgive me if I resume my seat now. If there are any questions with which I have not dealt, I shall be very pleased to discuss them personally or by letter with the hon. Members concerned.

It being Eleven, of the Clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

Orders of the Day — LAW OF PROPERTY (CONSOLIDATION) BILL [Lords].

Read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.—[Commander Eyres Monsell.]

Orders of the Day — SETTLED LAND (CONSOLIDATION) BILL [Lords].

Read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.—[Commander Lyres Monsell.]

Orders of the Day — TRUSTEE (CONSOLIDATION) BILL [Lords].

Read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.—[Commander Eyres Monsell.]

Orders of the Day — ADMINISTRATION OF ESTATES (CONSOLIDATION) BILL [Lords].

Read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.—[Commander Eyres Monsell.]

Orders of the Day — LAND REGISTRATION (CONSOLIDATION) BILL [Lords].

Read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.—[Commander Eyres Monsell.]

Orders of the Day — LAND CHARGES (CONSOLIDATION) BILL [Lords].

Read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.—[Commander Eyres Monsell.]

Orders of the Day — INDIAN AFFAIRS.

Ordered, That the Lords Message [31st March] relating to the appointment of a Committee on Indian Affairs be now considered. [Colonel Gibbs.]

Lords Message considered accordingly.

Ordered, That a Select Committee of Eleven Members be appointed to join
with a Committee appointed by the Lords as a Standing Joint Committee on Indian Affairs.

Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.

Brigadier-General Charteris, Sir Henry Craik, Mr. Fisher, Sir George Lloyd, Mr. Wardlaw-Milne, Sir Frank Nelson, Mr. Pilcher, Mr. Scurr, Mr. Snell, Mr. Wallhead and Sir Victor Warrender nominated Members of the Select Committee.

Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.

Ordered, "That Five be the quorum."—[Colonel Gibbs.]

Orders of the Day — MINISTERS OF RELIGION (REMOVAL OF DISQUALIFICATIONS) BILL.

Read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

The remaining Orders were read and postponed.

ADJOURNMENT.

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Commander Eyres Monsell.]

Adjourned accordingly at Seven Minutes after Eleven o'clock.